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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment he has made of the effect of fixed odds betting terminals on levels of gambling addiction.

The problem gambling rate among adults in England and Wales, as assessed by the Health Surveys which are published by the NHS information centre, is estimated to be less than 1%, which is lower than in comparable jurisdictions such as the USA, South Africa or Australia. Successive British Gambling Prevalence Survey results - 1999, 2007 and 2010 - as well as the more recent Health Survey results in 2012, which cover the period from when FOBTs were introduced to present, demonstrate that levels of problem gambling have been static over this period.

The Government is not complacent about levels of problem gambling. We consider the future of the regulation of FOBTs to be unresolved and will continue to be led by the evidence to devise effective measures to bear down hard on gambling-related harm wherever it is found.