Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment she has made of the correlation between rates of problem gambling and levels of (a) acquisitive and (b) violent crime.

Rates of problem gambling have remained stable at around or below 1% of the adult population since 1999. The Government launched its Review of the Gambling Act 2005 on 8 December 2020 with the publication of a Call for Evidence. The Review will be wide-ranging and evidence-led, aiming to ensure that the regulation of gambling is fit for the digital age and will consider how effective the regulatory framework is in preventing gambling-related crime, alongside other outcome measures.