Asked by
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review
the rules relating to (1) online, and (2) television, gambling
advertising.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport () (Con)
My Lords, gambling advertising is subject to strict controls on
content and placement wherever it appears. Ads must never seek to
target children or vulnerable people, and the ASA and the
Gambling Commission can take action in the case of a breach. The
Government have committed to reviewing the Gambling Act 2005 to
make sure that it is fit for the digital age, and we will
announce further details on this in due course.
(Con)
[V]
I say to my noble friend the Minister: enough is enough. We have
been discussing gambling and its dangers, particularly to
vulnerable people and particularly within the current lockdown,
for a long time now, yet we still seem to have an enormous amount
of advertising of gambling on both television and radio and, in
particular—with no restraint whatever, voluntary or otherwise—on
the online systems. I must ask my noble friend that action be
taken. If nothing else, can we please return the whole control of
gambling to the Home Office, where at least regulations exist
that would allow us to take further action to protect our public?
My noble friend brings great experience to this, including from
his time as a Minister at the Home Office. There are no plans
currently to move responsibility for gambling to the Home Office,
although my department works very closely with the Home Office
and others in overseeing this. In relation to my noble friend’s
comments about social media, work is going on specifically on
that area to make sure that adverts are not targeted at people
under 25 or at children. We are working actively with the
platforms to ensure that gambling ads do not appear for those who
have self-excluded from gambling.
(Lab) [V]
My Lords, almost a year ago on 2 July, in a parliamentary
Statement, the Government announced three measures agreed with
gaming companies to
“deliver real and meaningful progress on support for problem
gamblers”.—[Official Report, 2/7/19; col. 1345.]
The noble Lord, , said the
Government expected change and, if it did not manifest, would
take other measures and did not rule out legislation. Is the
Government’s judgment that the industry’s actions are delivering
real, meaningful progress? What metrics are the Government using,
and will they publish their calculations?
The main metric that the Government use to measure the extent of
problem gambling is the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, which
looks at population levels of problem gambling. That has remained
unchanged over 20 years, at slightly below 1%. I appreciate the
context of the noble Lord’s question: with the prevalence of
gambling advertising and promotion, intuitively one would expect
that figure to rise, but there is not evidence for that at the
moment.
(DUP) [V]
My Lords, although GAMSTOP has clearly been an effective tool
that has enabled problem gamblers to control their activities
online, repetitive advertising on social media, particularly on
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, remains a problem. Does the
Minister agree that there should be discussions with the leading
social media companies to seek a solution which would prevent the
reappearance of advertisements which a user has, on a previous
occasion, decided to hide?
My Lords, I struggled slightly to hear the noble Lord’s question,
so if my answer is not accurate I will happily write, but I think
the question was around social media. A lot of work is going on
in that area, with the platforms, to ensure that those who have
excluded themselves already are not targeted by advertising and
that children and vulnerable people are not targeted.
(Con) [V]
My Lords, I am a gambler, I confess, and I am very much opposed
to the nanny state. However, Blair’s Gambling Act has made some
people very rich—some disgustingly rich, frankly—at the expense
of the vulnerable and of some of the poorest members of our
society. Banning television and online advertisements and,
indeed, those at football grounds as well, would not be
government interference; it would be a necessary step to protect
some people who are, frankly, unable to look after themselves.
Will my noble friend please look at that very carefully?
I thank my noble friend for his honesty and his question. We will
obviously be reviewing a range of options when we come to review
the Gambling Act. The evidence around the impact of advertising
on problem gambling, as opposed to all gambling, is really not
clear, with much suggesting that, particularly for young people,
it is parents and their peers who have the greatest influence on
their behaviour.
(LD) [V]
My Lords, among problem gamblers, 55,000 are 11 to 16 year-old
children, many of whom use legal music and film download websites
that are often funded by gambling advertising. Will the
Government immediately consider legislation to enable these sites
to be blocked, and not wait for the long overdue review of
gambling legislation?
The noble Lord raises a very important point, which I am happy to
take back to my colleagues in the department and the Minister
responsible.
(Con)
Is my noble friend aware of the recent review of 23 April that
claimed there is too much gambling advertising on TV? While I
recognise that the gambling group has halted TV and radio ads
during lockdown, is not the area where action needs to be taken
the really worrying aspect of special offers for casino gambling,
which we all know is addictive? Will my noble friend look very
seriously at this problem?
On gambling advertising on television, again, this feels
counterintuitive, but the data from the ASA shows that in 2013
children saw 4.4 gambling ads each week and that had fallen to
2.5 in 2019. Obviously, we introduced the whistle-to-whistle ban
on advertising on matches on television. In relation to online
casinos, the Gambling Commission recently recommended curbs on
VIP schemes across various forms of gambling, which will be
implemented in the coming months. It is committed to addressing
any additional gaps that are identified.
(CB)
[V]
Excessive gambling is a public health challenge, with thousands
of people—as the noble Baroness just said, 1% of the
population—incurring debt and a high proportion of those
experiencing mental health problems. Yet we continue to be one of
the top 10 countries for gambling advertising online based on
knowledge-based marketing. Will the Minister inform the House
whether the Government intend to further limit such advertising,
particularly pop-up ads on social media platforms, to absolve the
need to self-exclude? This would prevent the associated harm to
health caused by gambling.
I regret I can only repeat what I have already said in terms of
the close work that is going on with the social media companies
and the commitment from the Gambling Commission to address any
additional gaps that are identified. However, the noble Baroness
makes an important point, which we recognise.
(Lab)
[V]
As a recent APPG report confirms, gambling companies have done
extremely well out of the pandemic, mainly because of the growth
in unregulated activity. There is a lot of talk about working
with the social media companies, but no action seems ever to
follow. Will the Minister confirm that one of the real and
meaningful steps that the Government actually could take to
safeguard children and vulnerable players would be by blocking
certain online platforms? Will she do that? If not, why not?
Just to be clear again on the data, unsurprisingly, because there
has been no sport during lockdown, 75% of people have not
increased their expenditure either of time or money on gambling
during lockdown. We should not be surprised about that because
there has been no sport broadcast. We are looking at a range of
measures and waiting for evidence being published by Public
Health England and the National Institute for Health Research. We
are preparing a national addiction strategy. The Government are
absolutely committed to addressing the problems that arise from
gambling and other addictive behaviours, but doing that in the
round rather than in a piecemeal fashion.
