The Public Accounts Committee has today published its report into gambling regulation and protecting problem gamblers. James Wild MP, was one of the lead members for the Committee's inquiry.
The Committee found that the Gambling Commission it oversees has an “unacceptably weak understanding” of the impact of gambling harms and lack measurable targets for reducing them. The Gambling Commission has “no key performance indicators” and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport leadership lacks urgency to address this.
The Gambling Commission is not proactively influencing gambling operators to improve protections, and consistently lags behind moves in the gambling industry. Where gambling operators fail to act responsibly, consumers do not have the same rights to redress as in other sectors.
There are an estimated 395,000 problem gamblers in the UK, with a further 1.8 million people ‘at risk’. The effects can be devastating, life-changing for people and whole families, including financial and home loss, relationship breakdowns, criminality and suicide.
The Gambling Commission is a non-departmental public body funded by licence fees from gambling operators. In 2018-19 it took £19 million in these licence fees: less than 0.2% of the £11.3 billion gambling yield that year. In contrast to the Commission’s £19m fees a year, the gambling industry has agreed to spend £60m to treat problem gamblers.
The government has approached other public health issues on the basis that prevention is better than cure. However, the Department was unwilling to accept the premise that increasing the Commission’s budget to prevent harm would be preferable to spending on treating problem gamblers.
The Commission also has little understanding of the impact of its other regulatory action, including its ban on the use of credit cards for online gambling.
The Committee calls for a new, published league table of gambling operators’ behaviour towards their customers, naming and shaming poor performers. It says the Department must urgently begin its long-planned review of the Gambling Act, setting out a timetable within three months of this report.
James Wild MP, Public Accounts Committee member and lead member on the Inquiry said:
“This report shows that the deck is stacked against vulnerable people being treated fairly. Glaring gaps in the regulatory system mean individuals cannot get redress if gambling operators fail to meet social responsibility obligations that are meant to protect problem gamblers. Frankly the regulator is not at the races – it works at a glacial pace, has no targets to reduce levels of harm, and is behind the curve on online gaming. I know from my constituents the devastating impact of problem gambling on people’s mental health, families, relationships, and lives. It is essential that the government’s review of the Gambling Act leads to urgent changes and a more effective regime.”
The Committee concludes:
- The Commission should develop a plan for how it will be more proactive in influencing the industry to treat consumers better, including using reputational tools such as league tables indicating how well each operator treats its customers
- The Commission should urgently investigate the impact of fixed odds betting that falls under “lottery” legislation and is accessible by 16 and 17-year-olds
- The Commission and the Department should urgently look at online fixed odds betting and report back to the Committee with how they intend to increase effectiveness of online harm reduction within three months.
- The Commission needs to “radically improve” the data and insight it collects to know what is going wrong for consumers and develop better information on its own performance: Within three months the Department and Commission should set out to the Committee what actions they will take to ensure they have the research and evidence base needed to better understand gambling problems, and to design an effective regulatory response.
- The Department and Commission should work together to strengthen consumer rights assess the impact on consumers of gaps in redress arrangements and examine options for increasing statutory protections with an individual right of redress for breaches of the Social Responsibility Code of Practice.
