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 to ensure that the level of advertising of betting products is reduced in relation to sporting events.

There are strict controls on the content of all gambling advertisements, including broadcast adverts and online. Gambling operators who advertise in the UK must comply with the advertising codes, which aim to ensure gambling advertising does not exploit vulnerable people, or target or appeal particularly to children or young people. TV adverts must be pre-cleared by Clearcast and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) acts on complaints and proactively checks the media to take action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements. The Gambling Commission also has a range of powers, including issuing fines, if operators break the rules.

The government's Review of Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures, published last May, looked at protections around gambling advertising and concluded it would remain under review. It set out a package of measures to strengthen existing protections further, including tough new guidance from the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) on protecting vulnerable people and children and a multi-million pound safer gambling advertising campaign. This launched in February and is aimed at reducing risky and impulsive gambling. GambleAware has commissioned major new research on the impact of gambling advertising on children, young people and vulnerable groups, which will be published later this year.

The gambling industry also recently announced that it will introduce a whistle-to-whistle ban on adverts during sporting events in response to public concerns. This is expected to come into force this summer. We will monitor this implementation closely.