Gambling ‘Wet Paper’ Proves the House Wins
A long awaited white paper on regulating the gambling industry has been published. We spoke to those involved with raising awareness of gambling harms - and supporting those affected by it. They told us they were disappointed that it doesn’t go far enough and “fails to tackle an industry that profits from our poorest communities.”
By Jack Howse
Last Thursday Liz Fraser, the culture secretary in Westminster, announced the contents of a new white paper on gambling regulation reforms. Some of which include:
A new one percent levy on gambling companies to fund treatment and research into gambling harms;
Affordability checks on those who are experiencing losses above a certain threshold;
New stake limits in online gambling to match those already found in bricks-and-mortar establishments with different limits for over and under 25 year olds;
Tighter rules on special offers like free bets on online gambling sites;
Greater power given to the Gambling Commission to target things like black market sites.
The gambling industry, has changed dramatically since the last bill governing gambling laws was passed back in 2005. The biggest change has been the development of the online gambling industry. The UK is the biggest regulated online gambling market in the world, worth almost £10 billion in 2021.
As gambling has moved from the high street bookies to people’s phones, there has been an increase in children and women experiencing gambling harms.
Whilst any change to the gambling industry is welcomed by campaigners, most charities and support services do not think the reforms go anywhere near far enough.
Martin Paterson is from the Machine Zone, a CIC who made a short documentary on gambling harms which we screened at the Community Newsroom. Martin himself has suffered from the affects of gambling harms and told Greater Govanhill:
“This White Paper proves the house wins. There is absolutely nothing on gambling adverts or sponsorship in sport and loads kicked into the long grass including more consultation regarding online stakes. Everything else is just asking the industry to do more on a voluntary basis.
But we will continue to raise awareness.”
In our latest issue, we ran a series of articles on gambling harms. We explored potential solutions and reforms to gambling harms that could be implemented in Scotland, speaking to experts about what changes they would like to see implemented.
All those we spoke to said that gambling harms should be treated as a public health issue. For Adrian Bailey, also from The Machine Zone, this is one of the major failures of the new bill:
“[The White Paper] seems to reflect the preferred industry framing by which a small number of 'vulnerable' people is a problem or pathological gambler, this fitting with a governmental ideology of personal responsibility and business freedom. As we knew it would, the 'Wet Paper' evidences the need for ongoing campaigning against a major public health issue.”
Public health also means that there should be provisions within the health service to treat people suffering in gambling harms. While there are NHS gambling treatment centres in England, so far there are none in Scotland.
Research has shown that gambling harms are five times likely to be experienced in the most deprived areas of Glasgow when compared to the most affluent. Through our investigation, we also found that that there are 17 times more betting shops in the most deprived areas than the most affluent.
Hugh Hill, Director of Services and Development at the Simon Community, a Glasgow charity for people experiencing homeless told us:
“At Simon Community Scotland we work with people who have lost everything in their lives through gambling, often rough sleeping and sometimes begging, petty crime or prostitution. When you see first hand, and many affected others do, how far and how quickly people can descend into destitution and hopelessness you'd be naturally disappointed in a White Paper that fails to tackle an industry that profits from our poorest communities.”
Perhaps the biggest reform people have been calling for is a ban of gambling advertising in sport and television yet there is no mention of this in the paper. The English Premier League recently announced they would be banning gambling sponsorship on team shirts (albeit sponsorship is still allowed around the stadium and on the sleeves of football shirts) yet the Scottish Premier League have not followed suit.
Adrian criticised the paper further:
“The White Paper represents a failure to address the harms arising from saturation advertising, marketing and sponsorship. By launching yet more consultation (e.g. on slots stakes), it further delays action on mitigating known elements in the production of harms.”.
And while the reforms are somewhat positive, they will now be susceptible to consultation and change. What’s more, many of them will just be advisory and not a legal requirement. So while the white paper is a small step forward, campaigners argue it is nowhere near enough.