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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment she has made of the effectiveness of regulation of gambling (a) advertising, (b) sponsorship and (c) marketing.

There are a range of robust rules in place to ensure that gambling adverts, wherever they appear, are socially responsible. The Gambling Commission is further strengthening protections on marketing to improve customer control and ensure marketing does not exacerbate harm. However, as the Gambling Minister set out in her speech at the GambleAware conference on 4 December, more needs to be done to improve protections. The industry now has a clear task to further raise standards to ensure that levels of gambling advertising does not exacerbate harm, and this work will be monitored closely.

Regarding sponsorship, all major sporting bodies have published their gambling sponsorship Codes of Conduct, setting minimum standards for socially responsible gambling sponsorships. The Premier League’s decision to ban front-of-shirt sponsorship by gambling firms will also commence by the end of the 2025/26 season. The Department will closely monitor the implementation of the Codes to ensure they have a meaningful impact.