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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of including a complete ban on gambling marketing communications for consumers who have self-excluded or registered with GAMSTOP within forthcoming regulatory changes to the Gambling Act 2005.

As a condition of their Gambling Commission licences, all operators must offer self-exclusion procedures for customers, with online operators also required to take part in the GAMSTOP multi-operator self-exclusion scheme. As part of the self-exclusion process, licensees must take all reasonable steps to prevent marketing materials being sent to any self-excluded individual, including removing their details from any marketing database within two days of receiving notice of self-exclusion. If a customer has registered with GAMSTOP, all operators are expected to remove them from marketing lists. Operators who fail to comply with self-exclusion requirements are subject to enforcement action from the Gambling Commission.