Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility

Peter Bone Excerpts
Tuesday 31st October 2017

(7 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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John Bercow Portrait Mr Speaker
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I call Mr Peter Bone.

Peter Bone Portrait Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
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Thank you, Mr Speaker, for calling another Spurs fan immediately. Your neutrality in the Chair, of course, would not prevent you from intervening. This excellent Minister is bringing forward a really sensible consultation. What worries me is that if we make the wrong decision, we may make the situation worse by driving problem gamblers out of betting shops, which are a controlled environment, and towards online gambling. The consultation is right, but we should look at that issue as part of it.

Tracey Crouch Portrait Tracey Crouch
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Online gambling has, in many respects, a better opportunity to protect players, because sites have all the details of players’ practices. Obviously, as part of the consultation, we are going to look at how we can protect online gamblers, but we definitely have more opportunity to do that than we do to protect somebody going in and out of different bookmakers.