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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether her Department plans to take steps to reduce gambling advertising during school run hours, in the context of analysis from Nielsen which found that approximately 1,200 hours of such advertisements aired during those times over the last 12 months.

All gambling advertising, wherever it appears, is subject to strict controls on content and placement. Adverts must never be targeted at children or vulnerable people, and the Committees of Advertising Practice (CAP) has recently announced changes to further restrict content that may appeal to vulnerable people, with a further announcement on measures to protect children expected shortly. Radio adverts are subject to a pre-clearance regime through RadioCentre and radio advertising receives a very low volume of complaints, accounting for only 2% of all cases investigated by the ASA in 2020.

Children’s exposure to gambling adverts through radio remains very low, with research from Ipsos Mori for GambleAware in 2020 finding that radio advertising accounted for only 1% of children and young people’s reported exposure to gambling adverts. However, it is our understanding that at least one major gambling operator has committed not to run radio adverts during ‘school run’ periods in response to Nielsen’s findings.

As part of our wide-ranging Review of the Gambling Act 2005 we are looking closely at the rules around gambling advertising and carefully considering the evidence of its impacts. A White Paper setting out future direction of travel will be published in the coming months.