Asked by: Lord Foster of Bath (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to their policy paper High Stakes: Gambling Reform for the Digital Age, published on 27 April, when they will publish the cross-sport Code of Conduct outlined in that paper; and whether they will include an implementation timeline.
Answered by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
All domestic sports governing bodies have agreed to four core principles underpinning the cross-sport Code of Conduct on gambling sponsorship: (i) protecting children and young people; (ii) socially responsible promotion; (iii) reinvestment in sport; and (iv) maintaining sporting integrity. These principles put in place a robust minimum standard for sponsorship across all sports. Through the code, a proportion of in-stadium advertising will be dedicated to safer gambling, and replica kits for adults will be made available without gambling logos, alongside the existing requirements for children’s replica kits.
We want sports governing bodies to have sufficient flexibility to implement these principles in a way which maximises impact for the sports and their fans. Bespoke, sport-specific codes are currently being designed by individual governing bodies, and will be published and implemented in due course. The Premier League and English Football League plan to have their codes in place by next season. DCMS will continue to work closely with sports bodies to ensure that implementation and enforcement processes are robust.
Asked by: Iain Duncan Smith (Conservative - Chingford and Woodford Green)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the cross-sport Code of Conduct is (a) robust and (b) workable in practice; and what lessons she has learnt from the application of CAP code 2.1 for regulation of breaches of the Code.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
All domestic sports governing bodies have agreed to four core principles underpinning the cross-sport Code of Conduct on gambling sponsorship: (i) protecting children and young people (ii) socially responsible promotion (iii) reinvestment into sport (iv) maintaining sporting integrity. These principles put in place a robust minimum standard for sponsorship across all sports. Through the code, a proportion of in-stadia advertising will be dedicated to safer gambling messaging, and replica kits for adults will be made available without gambling logos, alongside the existing requirements for childrens’ replica kits.
Sports governing bodies must have sufficient flexibility to implement these principles in a way which maximises impact for the sports and their fans. Bespoke, sport-specific Codes are currently being designed by individual sports governing bodies, and will be implemented in due course. The Premier League and English Football League plan to have their Codes in place by next season. DCMS will continue to work closely with sports on their implementation and enforcement practices.
As a licence condition, gambling operators must comply with the restrictions set out in the Advertising Codes, which includes robust rules under section 2 regulating the recognition of marketing communications. Under these rules, marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such and make clear their commercial intent, if that is not obvious from the context. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) can and does take action against breaches, and a recent ruling can be found here. Operators are liable to enforcement action from the Gambling Commission if affiliates which they pay to carry out marketing activities do not comply with the rules.
Asked by: Keir Mather (Labour - Selby and Ainsty)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if her Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of offering financial compensation to people affected by the collapse of BetIndex.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The collapse of BetIndex Ltd, the operators of the novel gambling product Football Index, had a significant impact on former customers, and we recognise the frustration and anger that this has caused. As a result, the Government announced an Independent Review, conducted by Malcolm Sheehan KC, which looked at how the company had been regulated and identified lessons learned for various agencies. These recommendations have since been implemented.
Company liquidation proceedings are ongoing, and former customers will be considered among the creditors as company assets are divided.
Asked by: Philip Davies (Conservative - Shipley)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions she has had with the (a) Gambling Commission and (b) Financial Conduct Authority on potential proposals to regulate companies like Football Index.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The collapse of BetIndex Ltd, the operators of the novel gambling product Football Index, had a significant impact on former customers, and we recognise the frustration and anger that this has caused. As a result, the Government announced an Independent Review, conducted by Malcom Sheehan KC, which looked at how the company had been regulated and identified lessons learned for various agencies. These recommendations have since been implemented.
Following the collapse of Football Index, the then-Minister held several meetings with the Gambling Commission, and officials have worked closely with their counterparts at His Majesty’s Treasury on the role of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in this case. I also met representatives from the Football Index Action Group last year and officials from the department are discussing the issues raised by the group with the Gambling Commission.
Asked by: Kim Johnson (Labour - Liverpool, Riverside)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's consultation on the statutory levy on gambling operators, published on 17 October 2023, whether she has made an assessment of the potential impact of setting a statutory levy rate of one percent for remote pools betting.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Higher rates of problem gambling are associated with certain products, particularly those online, compared to most land-based products. We want to take this into account in the design of the statutory levy, as well as the higher operating costs in the land-based sector. Public Health England’s evidence review of gambling-related harms, based on Health Survey data, showed football pools to have a 'problem gambling' rate of 5%, which is higher than the population level which has been at or below 1% for the past 20 years.
The consultation on the design of the statutory levy opened on 17 October and has now closed. Our consultation specifically invited views on the question of levy rates so that the Government has the best available evidence to inform our final policy decisions on a structure of the levy. The Government is carefully considering the evidence received, and we will publish our response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Gambling-related harms evidence review: quantitative analysis, updated on 11 January 2023, what definition of pools betting her Department used during the evidence gathering process; and which gambling activities were labelled as pools betting.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Gambling-related harms evidence review: quantitative analysis has not been updated since original publication on 30 September 2019. The Health Survey for England (2012, 2015, 2016 and 2018) was used as the primary dataset for this review and analysis was carried out on this four-year combined and weighted dataset. Information on methods for data collection for the Health Survey for England is available at the following link:
The Health Survey for England asks whether survey respondents have participated in several different types gambling activities, and is included in the quantitative analysis which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-harms-evidence-review
Gambling activities were not specifically labelled as ‘pools betting’.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Gambling-related harms evidence review: quantitative analysis, updated on 11 January 2023, what methodologies were used to gather data on Football Pools.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Gambling-related harms evidence review: quantitative analysis has not been updated since original publication on 30 September 2019. The Health Survey for England (2012, 2015, 2016 and 2018) was used as the primary dataset for this review and analysis was carried out on this four-year combined and weighted dataset. Information on methods for data collection for the Health Survey for England is available at the following link:
The Health Survey for England asks whether survey respondents have participated in several different types gambling activities, and is included in the quantitative analysis which is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-harms-evidence-review
Gambling activities were not specifically labelled as ‘pools betting’.
Asked by: Clive Betts (Labour - Sheffield South East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's consultation on the statutory levy on gambling operators, published on 17 October 2023, for what reason the proposed statutory levy rate for remote pools betting was set at 1%.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
Higher rates of problem gambling are associated with certain products, particularly those online, compared to most land-based products. We want to take this into account in the design of the statutory levy, as well as the higher operating costs in the land-based sector. Public Health England’s evidence review of gambling-related harms, based on Health Survey data, showed football pools to have a 'problem gambling' rate of 5%, which is higher than the population level which has been at or below 1% for the past 20 years.
The consultation on the design of the statutory levy opened on 17 October and has now closed. Our consultation specifically invited views on the question of levy rates so that the Government has the best available evidence to inform our final policy decisions on the structure of the levy. The Government is carefully considering the evidence received, and we will publish our response to the consultation in due course.
Asked by: Carolyn Harris (Labour - Swansea East)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the University of Bristol research paper entitled, The prevalence of gambling adverts during the opening weekend of the English Premier League 2023-23, published 2024; and if she will take legislative steps to reduce the number of gambling adverts shown during football matches.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
His Majesty’s Government recognises that, while millions of people gamble online without experiencing problems, for some it becomes an addiction with serious consequences. In our approach to gambling advertising, we have struck a balanced and evidence-led approach which tackles aggressive advertising that is most likely to appeal to children, while still allowing sports bodies and others to benefit commercially from deals with responsible gambling firms. There are robust rules in place to ensure that gambling advertising is socially responsible and cannot be targeted at or strongly appeal to children. The Government welcomed the voluntary whistle-to-whistle ban on TV betting ads during live sports programmes, agreed by industry. According to figures from the Betting and Gaming Council, the ban reduced gambling advertisement views by children (age 4-17) by 70% over the full duration of live sporting programmes. We also welcomed the Premier League’s announcement that it will ban gambling sponsors from the front of shirts, and are working with a wider group of sports governing bodies to introduce a Code of Conduct on responsible gambling sponsorship.
We continue to monitor research, and have carefully considered the findings in the study by the University of Bristol. Furthermore, we are introducing a statutory levy charged to gambling operators which will raise trusted, long-term funding for gambling research. We are clear that we will continue to look carefully at any further research that results from that and take action if necessary.
Asked by: Ronnie Cowan (Scottish National Party - Inverclyde)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if she will make an assessment of the impact of the whistle-to-whistle ban on gambling advertising in football on the number of gambling messages displayed throughout televised football matches.
Answered by Stuart Andrew - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government welcomed the voluntary whistle-to-whistle ban on TV betting ads during live sports programmes, agreed by industry. According to figures from the Betting and Gaming Council, the ban reduced gambling advertisement views by children (age 4-17) by 70% over the full duration of live sporting programmes, with a 96% reduction in gambling TV advertising specifically during the restricted period.
As part of the Gambling review, consideration was given to a range of restrictions on gambling advertising. As set out in the white paper we have struck a balanced and evidence-led approach which tackles aggressive advertising and that which is most likely to appeal to children, while still allowing sports bodies to benefit commercially from deals with responsible gambling firms.