Five things we learned from the Health and Social Care Committee’s review into UK gambling

The government’s Health and Social Care Committee has undertaken a review into the current state of the UK’s gambling industry, with the speakers present at the session not featuring a single representative from the gambling sector.

During a meeting held on 2 April, two separate panels discussed the factors and products which lead to players being exposed to gambling-related harm.  

The panel for the first session included the University of Southampton’s professor of psychiatry Sam Chamberlain, professor of gambling research and policy at the University of Glasgow Heather Wardle, and Lucy Hubber, director of Public Health Nottingham and the Association of Directors of Public Health.  

For the second session, panellists included the Gambling Commission’s executive director of research and policy Tim Miller, NHS England’s national clinical adviser on gambling harms Henrietta Bowden-Jones, and deputy director of alcohol, tobacco and gambling Andrew Vereker.  

The lack of true industry representation, bar the presence of Miller from the Gambling Commission, did allow for the assumed benefits of tighter regulations to be promoted, including claims made by Chamberlain that the incoming statutory levy will permit  operators to decide how research, education and treatment (RET) services are provided in the UK.

Under the current voluntary levy system, ending 5 April, while operators donate funds to support these charities, they are unable to influence how individual support services deliver programmes.  Chamberlain suggested that gambling companies were able to influence education programmes delivered in schools via donations, with Deal Me Out CEO Jordan Lea taking to LinkedIn to push back against such claims.

Lea wrote: “LCCP RET donations are a required payment from operators as part of their licence. They are not gestures of goodwill, nor do operators intend them to be. Never has an operator seen our education materials or asked anything about them – ever.

“At this point, I’ve had enough. This is now going to be challenged aggressively and with every power we can use.”

Here, EGR explores some of the key talking points to arise from the panels.

Systemic failures  

When fielding a question pertaining to whether the UK gambling industry is moving towards a better system in terms of regulation, Wardle highlighted what she described as historical failings of the country’s regulators to properly hold operators to account.  

She said: “We rely heavily on the industry to provide solutions to these issues. We rely on the industry to identify those people with whom interactions should be made, and they trust the industry to make those interactions. 

“We’ve seen systemic failures via the regulator and fines that they’ve issued, we also rely on the industry implementing their own voluntary codes of advertising and marketing and assume that they stick to them. They are frequently breached. 

“You may put your complaints to the ASA [Advertising Standards Authority] about that, and the response is it’s a breach of a voluntary code so they don’t have any authority over that.” 

The academic added that “independent research and oversight” of existing systems would go some way to alleviate concerns.

Different approach needed to track gambling-related harm 

Wardle added that the statutory levy, which comes into force on 6 April, presents an opportunity to change the way gambling harm is monitored.

The statutory levy will see an end to the voluntary system, with online operators required to pledge 1.1% of gross gambling yield (GGY) to RET services.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has been chosen as the prevention commissioner, meaning it will have a role in deciding where the funds are funnelled. Some have criticised the decision to allocate this role to the OHID, given its previous prohibitionist stance against the sector.

However, Wardle said: “We need to be thinking about the opportunity we have with the levy. [We can be] really systematic about changing the monitoring and surveillance system that we have and making sure we get that independence into the prevention system, so we’re not relying on industry.

“They’re [operators] generating profits, but they generate the profits from the people who are most harmed, and we’re relying on them to actually implement the solutions that are needed. That system needs to change absolutely.” 

Wardle went on to emphasise that the risks associated with gambling are “underestimated”, which can make it harder to spot signs of harm.  

She said: “Gambling is as bad as alcohol and substance use in terms of its wider social harms and its impact on people’s mental health. It’s that accumulation, but it’s as yet unknown.”

Children and young people at significant risk 

A recurring theme throughout the first session was the risk posed to children and young people who are exposed to gambling from an early age.  

The overlap between video games and gambling was highlighted as a particular area of concern, given the overriding prevalence of loot box mechanics in several popular titles.

Wardle continued: “You have more gambling mechanics embedded within video games, which then becomes part of that normalisation of gambling.  

“You are training this generation […] this is the kind of reward that you might get – and embedding it with no age restrictions into things that are freely available to them. 

“I’ve interviewed children who have been engaging in these kinds of products from younger than 11, particularly with the ones that are embedded within the video games.” 

Loot boxes avoided being restricted in the white paper into the Gambling Act 2005 review, with the previous Conservative government telling the video games industry it was up to the sector to self-regulate.

Speaking to EGR last month, Paf deputy CEO Daniela Johansson said that loot boxes meant young people were starting to gamble with an already rounded understanding of the random mechanics of online slots and casino games. 

Revamping advertising regulations 

In order to limit children’s exposure to gambling, Chamberlain argued that the UK must “radically change” its approach to gambling advertising. 

He said: “The key thing that needs to be done to address this is to radically change our approach to advertising in this country. There’s TV, sponsorship of football matches, the front page of most of our newspapers. 

“In other countries, they have bans on either all types of gambling adverts or the more damaging types of gambling during  the day, with adverts appearing after the watershed, for example.  

“I think changing regulation on that front is sorely needed. That’s what’s going to make the difference because these children, young people, are just being saturated with adverts.”

Wardle added that when compared to the rest of Europe, the UK’s marketing and advertising is “one of the most liberal regimes, with very few restrictions”. 

In comparison, Spain and Italy have banned football club sponsorships. Although in Italy, operators are able to circumvent this by using infotainment or live score brands brands related to the operator as the sponsor.

In Ireland, where the market recently regulated, a watershed window has been put in place as part of efforts to reduce children’s exposure to ads.

In the UK, there is a whistle-to-whistle ban on ads in place, with operators committed to portioning a percentage of ad space to responsible gambling messaging.

Enhanced data sharing 

When asked what new measures could potentially help the industry, NHS England’s Bowden-Jones suggested operators sharing player data early on could help prevent gambling harm from spiralling out of control in the future. 

“The next phase needs to be, and I’m speaking on behalf of all the people who lost their relatives from suicide to gambling, and all the people who lost their family homes because of gambling debts, a way in which data – all the things industry knows about each and every player – can be made available,” she said.  

The UK has deployed GamProtect since last year, in which operators can share data on customers to best protect those at risk.

Additionally, the single customer view (SCV) had been in development for the past four years, and allows licensed operators share customer data.

The aim is to identify those customers most at-risk to steer intervention and engagement policy, as well as potentially closing accounts.

The industry view

Following the Health and Social Care Committee panels this week, EGR contacted the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) for comment on the claims and allegations put forward to MPs.

A BGC spokesperson said: “The white paper is a once in a generation moment for change and the proposals contained in it must draw a line under the lengthy and often polarised debates on gambling.

“Betting and gaming is popular, contrary to misconceptions, the numbers of people betting are stable and not increasing, problem gambling rates are stable and low, and our members are a genuine British business success story, ploughing billions into the economy.

“The focus should now be on continuing to drive higher standards, while investing in jobs and businesses in the UK’s world-leading regulated industry.

“With policy set for the sector, the BGC wants to see the remaining white paper proposals delivered so our members can focus on investment, jobs and supporting the government’s ambitious growth agenda.”

The trade body also noted that is members have committed 20% of their respective ads across TV, radio and digital to safer gambling and that the BGC takes a zero-tolerance approach to betting by children.