Tom Watson comments on Gambling Commission’s announcement on age verification

Tom Watson, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, commenting on the Gambling Commission’s announcement on age verification, said:

“Poor age verification standards have been a serious problem in the gambling industry for some time and have led to children and vulnerable people getting sucked into addiction and heavy losses.

“It’s good news that the Commission is imposing stricter conditions on licence holders, but there is still much more that operators must do to prevent problem gambling. We also need to see enhanced due diligence across the industry in all aspects, including affordability checks, identifying and preventing problem gambling patterns and banning the use of credit cards to gamble.”