Neil Goulden: Draconian regulation won’t reduce problem gambling rates

Gamesys Group chairman Neil Goulden has dismissed claims that problem gambling in the UK is a public health epidemic.

Speaking exclusively to EGR, Goulden cited the latest figures from the Gambling Commission, which showed that just 0.3% of the UK population were classed as problem gamblers in the year to December 2020.

“Blanket bans, blanket controls and treating it [problem gambling] like a public health issue, where for example every cigarette smoked is a damage to the health of either the person smoking or the person near them, that is not what gambling is about because most people don’t suffer any harm at all,” said Goulden.

“What we must realise is if you put in draconian population-wide measures, people won’t stop gambling and if they’re a problem gambler they won’t stop gambling.

“If you put in stake and deposit limits, they will seek out sites that do not impose those limits and those sites tend to be offshore, black market and with no protection.

“In doing so, you will turn gambling into something similar to prohibition in the US in the 1920s, where people who wanted to have a drink ended up in speakeasies and in the hands of the mob and all of the negative consequences which followed. It’s the same thing,” he added.

Neil Goulden

Gamesys has focused on responsible gambling throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, significantly increasing its interactions with gamblers as well as voluntarily ceasing direct marketing to players.

The Gamesys chair took aim at so-called prohibitionist campaigners looking to push through strict monthly affordability caps, as well as stake and deposit limits for online casino.

“If they don’t want to gamble, don’t gamble, but don’t stop other people having fun and look down your noses on people who like to have a punt,” Goulden said.

“I think there’s been a pushback recently, as a lot of people have started to see what this actually could mean,” he explained.

Goulden, who has been with Gamesys since 2016, said a theoretical monthly deposit limit of £125 would in effect limit punters to £30 a week.

“Last time I looked, beer in London was about six pound a pint, and that limits me to five pints a week. When I go down my local pub on a Friday, have three pints and go back on a Saturday and want a fourth pint, is someone going to stop me having it?

“As such this is the biggest infringement to our liberties since rationing after the Second World War but that was needed because we didn’t have the food.

“The last government regulation that imposed limits on spending on a legal pursuit was repealed in 1584, so it goes against the whole culture of our society to limit where people can spend their money,” Goulden concluded.