Big Debate: Did the industry get off lightly in the white paper proposals where advertising is concerned?

Yes – Matt Zarb-Cousin, co-founder of Gamban

Director of Clean Up Gambling

While the white paper included a plethora of harm-reduction policies, such as a statutory levy to fund research, education and treatment, affordability checks and stake limits on slots, the industry got off lightly on advertising, promotion and sponsorship.  

The work of The Big Step and the Coalition Against Gambling Ads ultimately pressured the Premier League into agreeing to ban front-of-shirt gambling sponsors, yet the government could have gone much further. Children are growing up in an environment where gambling advertising is ubiquitous, and this degree of normalisation risks offsetting any education they might receive seeking to inform them of the harm gambling can cause. So, when young people turn 18, they are desperate to take advantage of the offers that have been promoted to them across the years leading up to that point. And it is those under the age of 25, due in part to the developmental stages of the brain, who are most at-risk of developing a gambling disorder.

Were it not for vested interests beyond the gambling industry, such as in sport and the media, lobbying against reform, then perhaps the Department for Culture, Media and Sport might have. In any case, their proposed reforms to the sector will at least make the industry safer, given the promotion of them will now continue. If anything, it might put more pressure on the government to deliver those reforms quickly, given it is allowing the promotion of a sector it has conceded isn’t regulated to an adequate level to prevent harm.

Direct marketing, such as bonuses and free bets, will however be consulted on this year to ensure they are used in a socially responsible way. We’d like to see the Information Commissioner’s Office’s investigation into gambling industry data abuse feed into that. Inducements to stimulate engagement directed toward those known to be at risk should not be permitted and these run entirely contrary to any notion of safer gambling.

No – Sarah MacDonald, partner at  Wiggin

By the time the paper was published, there was no expectation of an all-out advertising ban. Some groups were hoping for one, so they might regard anything less as a ‘light touch’.        

Similarly, the lack of legislative amendments to gambling sponsorship of sports properties has been headline-grabbing, but few commentators have looked at the impact of the ‘strong’ appeal test on the reduction of advertising materials that many UK football sponsorship arrangements would have produced.      

If we were to only look at two of the white paper’s proposals for gambling advertising likely to significantly impact the industry, the following probably make it to the top of the list.

First, the restrictions on bonuses. How do operators assess the behavioural markers of those customers not demonstrating ‘strong’ indicators of harm? While we won’t know how this assessment should be made until after the consultation, this doesn’t appear to be easy at first blush and extends further than the scheme proposed by the Gambling Commission. It’s likely the consultation around the mechanics of bonus offers will result in a large-scale simplification of these marketing tools, even without the introduction of caps and time limits.

Secondly, direct marketing consent and clear opt-in. Removing the ability for the industry to rely on the ‘soft opt-in’ for direct marketing of similar goods could have a huge impact on those larger operators’ ability to cross-sell. The level of consent granularity put forward will place pressure on operator resources.

While the zero-tolerance approach the ASA takes for digital, targeted advertising being seen by under-18s is already a high bar, the new requirement to supplement targeting strategy with ‘de-targeting’ data is not as easy as it sounds. There are particular difficulties with this when some of the data sets have already been identified as not robust, leaving the industry scratching its head as to how workable this is in practice.