Gaming Machines: Impact Assessments

(asked on 8th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what regulatory impact assessments have been made of measures taken to deliver the Gambling Act 2005’s fair and open licensing objective since the changes adopted via the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014, excluding those changes in respect of the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals stake reduction.


Answered by
John Whittingdale Portrait
John Whittingdale
This question was answered on 15th June 2021

The licensing objectives in the Gambling Act 2005 are principles to be applied by the Gambling Commission and other licensing authorities in exercising their functions under the Act. The Commission is required to permit gambling, in so far as it thinks it reasonably consistent with pursuit of the licensing objectives: a) preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime, b) ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way, and c) protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

Regulatory Impact Assessments are produced by the government as a tool to assess the impact of government intervention and inform policy decision-making. The Gambling Commission is required under the Enterprise Act 2016 to produce Business Impact Target (BIT) assessments for regulatory measures that it introduces but these relate to the impact on business rather than the licensing objectives. However, as part of its consultation process, the Commission seeks information from stakeholders on the impact and value of its proposals. It also works with a wide range of partners to evaluate the impact of safer gambling measures, in connection with the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harm.

The Commission is currently working to assess the initial impact of the ban on credit cards, including with the Gambling Research Exchange (GREO) on an evaluation of consumer behaviour following the ban. In April 2021, it published a new Corporate Strategy which includes a commitment to developing a framework to evaluate the impact of its work.

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