Deal Me Out to shutter services as lack of funding bites
Fellow safer gambling experts hit out at top-heavy funding model for charities as firm to maintain crisis website with volunteer team
Gambling-related harm charity Deal Me Out is set to shutter its education and support services due to lack of funding.
Confirming the news on LinkedIn, Deal Me Out founder Jordan Lea said that from 1 June the charity would fold the aforementioned services, along with its DMO NxtGEN training programme for graduates.
Lea added that the charity would continue to run its crisis website for two further years to provide necessary support to those in need.
The crisis website will be supported by funding from the likes of Playtech and Metropolitan Gaming and will be staffed by a voluntary team.
Deal Me Out is one of the organisations on the Gambling Commission’s (GC) list of businesses that operators can contribute towards via research, education and treatment (RET) funding.
Current regulations state that licensed operators in the UK must make an annual financial contribution to one or more organisations that are approved by the GC.
According to the latest available data, Deal Me Out received £64,650 in contributions between January and March 2022.
However, GambleAware secured £24.2m during the same period, followed by YGAM (£525,015) and Gordon Moody (£300,196) in second and third place, respectively.
As it stands, there are no requirements for RET to be shared equally among the registered businesses on the GC’s approved list.
Speaking following the announcement, BetBlocker founder Duncan Garvie hit out at the current state of affairs.
Garvie said: “There is no good reason that an organisation like Deal Me Out should be struggling to get this level of funding. Full stop.
“There’s still time to do something about this. I’m asking David Rossington [GC director] and Zoe Osmond [GambleAware CEO] to urgently review whether funding can be found to support Deal Me Out over the next year.
“If funding can be found before June, we can prevent the degradation of the support available to those in need. Direct action can make a difference now,” he added.
Touching on the shuttering of its services, Deal Me Out founder Lea remarked: “This was a monumentally difficult but probably foreseeable decision due to lack of funding, and the immensely difficult arena we all operate in.
“Deal Me Out will not go away. We’ll still continue to be in the corner of those who need us, even if that means as a voluntary organisation, god willing, we may even be back with vengeance.”