Government must ‘up the ante’ on gambling reform

Every year, hundreds of lives are lost to gambling, with many more individuals and families affected, and more still at risk of serious harm.

While today’s white paper sets out a range of measures designed to reduce the harm caused by gambling, there is concern amongst Directors of Public Health (DsPH) that they fail to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of the public.

In response to the recent DCMS committee inquiry on gambling regulation, submitted in partnership with the Faculty of Public Health and Royal Society for Public Health, ADPH argued strongly for a public health approach to gambling. Shifting the emphasis away from individual responsibility would ensure that gambling policy would focus on the role of the industry, and on collective responsibility.

Greg Fell, ADPH Vice President said:

“It is very disappointing that the Government has largely ignored the advice of public health experts in developing these proposals. Instead of looking to target individual gamblers, we need to look at the role that society and the gambling industry is playing in causing gambling harm and taking steps to limit it.

“The system is fundamentally broken, with significant conflicts of interest throughout. While it is good that the Gambling Commission will take the lead in commissioning future research, there is still far too much dependency on the industry regulating its own activity, particularly with marketing.”

The gambling industry currently spends around £500 million every year on marketing and employs a range of marketing tactics, helping to normalise gambling and exposing children and young people from an early age.

“The fact that children are being exposed on a daily basis to harmful gambling products, means that we are creating a society where people are increasingly engaging in activities that can have very real – and very harmful – consequences. Today’s announcement does nothing to stop this happening. What’s needed is a comprehensive ban on all forms of marketing across multiple media and community channels,” added Fell.

The proposed levy, while a source of much needed funding, is also entirely dependent on the industry itself, and does not address the need to establish stable and independent funding streams which avoid creating dependencies on industry earnings.

“These products are created by an industry seeking to make a profit from people losing. Today’s announcement could be a watershed moment and presents us with a real opportunity to protect people – and save lives. The Government has acknowledged that gambling products are harmful but the proposals, which could well be watered down further as a result of consultation, are currently too vague and simply don’t go far enough.

“By focusing on the harm caused by them from a public health perspective, and funding its prevention accordingly, we free up society to be able to live healthier lives. It is only through a process of de-coupling the industry from prevention, and re-positioning our thinking to how we can prevent harm from ever happening, that we will be able to implement real change.

“Our task now, alongside our partners in public health, and those organisations and people who have lived experience of being affected by gambling, is to keep presenting the evidence to the Government, so that they can up the ante and produce a more robust set of solutions that enable people to live their lives in a society that has health at its heart.”