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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking in response to the finding by the Gambling Commission that 2 million people in the UK are addicted to gambling.

A report from NatCen, published by the Gambling Commission in August 2017, estimated the number of adult problem gamblers in Great Britain as approximately 430,000, 0.8% of the population. The surveys that underpinned this also identified people who are at risk of problems related to their gambling behaviour but who are not classified as problem gamblers. The number of moderate-risk gamblers was 555,000, and the number of low-risk gamblers was approximately 1,430,000. Both headline rates of problem gambling and at-risk rates have been relatively stable for many years.

In October the government published a consultation on Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility across the industry. This closed on 23 January, and we will consider all responses and publish our response and next steps in due course.