Gambling White Paper Promises Big Changes, But Does It Do Enough?

Following years of speculation and constant delays the government’s long-awaited white paper on gambling was finally published on Thursday the 27th of May. Amongst a number of changes that the government has promised to carry out consultations on is the idea that there could be a stake limit introduced to online slot machines, which may be as low as £2.

Younger people, those aged between 18 and 24, might well see limits to their stakes introduced even if the stake on slot games is at the higher end of the potential spectrum. Checks on gamblers losing a lot of money in a short space of time might also come in.

For some, though, the proposals being made in the white paper don’t go far enough, whilst critics say that introducing ‘consultations’ is just another excuse for the government to ‘dither and delay’. The majority of the white paper appears to be focussed on the idea of protecting the most vulnerable, which has long been the stated aim of the United Kingdom Gambling Commission.

The question then becomes whether protecting the most vulnerable is likely to be done at the expense of everyone else who enjoys the occasional flutter. If so, is that a price worth paying?

Slot Limits

One of the standout suggestions in the white paper is that stake limits on online slot machines might be introduced. The suggestion is that the stakes could be as high as £15 per spin or as low as £2 per spin, with the latter meaning that online slots would be brought in line with the stake limits introduced to Fixed Odds Betting Terminals back in 2019.

Whilst the limit on the maximum stake that people can play per spin is likely to come, what seems certain is that young people will have a limit introduced to their play regardless of what the limits are for everyone else.

There is going to be a consultation about limiting the maximum stake that those in the ‘particularly vulnerable cohort’ of 18 to 24-year-olds to either £2, £4 or for an approach based on each person’s individual risk to be carried out.

Some sections of the gambling industry had tried to get ahead of the white paper and any likely limits by introducing limits of their own. Flutter, which is the parent company of the likes of Betfair, Sky Bet and Paddy Power, but a £10 limit on online slots in place in September of 2021. It is likely that the consultation will look at the impact of that limit on punters.

Helping The Most Vulnerable

The stated aim of the Gambling Commission is to look after the most vulnerable. That is part of the reason why there is a plan to introduce stricter stake limits on online slots. At the same time, gamblers who lose large sums of money might well end up facing checks.

If someone loses £1,000 in 24 hours, for example, or £2,000 over the course of 90 days then checks could come into play on the affordability of those losses. Whilst the white paper mentions the what, it doesn’t do much to suggest the how, so we don’t know the manner in which such checks would be carried out.

Prior to the release of the white paper it had been suggested that affordability checks would be replaced with financial risk checks, although that may just be semantics as the meaning of an affordability check is fairly loose.

Lucy Frazer, the Culture Secretary, said that the government needs to do more to ‘protect children’, which will include ‘ensuring children can do no forms of gambling, either online or on widely accessible scratch cards’. With a strengthening of pub licensing laws in order to stop children being able to play slot machines that offer cash prizes in pubs, there is also a play to stop any form of lottery to those under 18.

The white paper said, “Although we recently raised the age limit for the National Lottery to 18, other lottery and football pools products are still legally permitted from age 16.”

The new notion of ‘affordability checks’ is mention in the white paper, largely with the aim of protecting the 300,000 or so problem gamblers that live in the United Kingdom. A Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport spokesperson said, “We are determined to protect those most at risk of gambling-related harm including young and vulnerable people.”

Part of that includes the proposal to introduce a mandatory levy in order to pay for research into addiction and the treatment of addicts. There is a levy at the moment but it is voluntary and the money doesn’t go to the NHS.

Relaxations For Land-Based Betting Companies

Interestingly, one of the areas that the white paper appears to suggest that their might be a relaxation of rules is for land-based gambling locations.

Whilst online casinos face a tightening of the rules, debit cards might be allowed to be used in gaming machines. Alongside this, the number of gaming machines in small casinos is likely to be increased. There appears to be a desire to ‘align fees and mandatory premises licence conditions as appropriate’ for smaller casinos that might have been given their requirements as part of the Gaming Act of 1968.

One of the interesting lines that appears in the white paper is the notion that any sized casino will be given the ability to offer ‘sports betting’, which would presumably make them more like the casinos that you see in Las Vegas that have sportsbooks in addition to traditional casino games on offer.

There is also the suggestion that there are some casino licences that were available as part of the 2005 Act but went unused, which could instead to be issued to local authorities this time around. That is something we’re likely to see more about in the coming weeks and months.

A New Ombudsman For The Gambling Industry?

When the white paper was published, about 2,000 customer complaints were made each year, either to the various Alternative Dispute Resolution services or to the Gambling Commission, were about social responsibility breaches, gambling harm and safer gambling.

These complaints are out of the scope of ADR services and the UKGC can’t ask gambling companies to repay individual customers. As a result, customers that want to seek personal redress about the issues highlighted here are left with no choice but to pursue costly and doubtful court action as things stand.

One possible solution to this would be to create an ombudsman that would be ‘operationally independent’. This would have creditability with customers, adjudicating on complaints around social responsibility or gambling harm if an operator can’t successfully resolve the issues.

It would work to support both customers and the Gambling Commission, with operators expected to step forward and offer customers ‘appropriate redress’. If the ombudsman doesn’t do what is necessary, the government could then legislate to ‘put its position beyond doubt’.  The current dispute resolution service, IBAS, to which most major brands are signed up, has been touted for the ombudsman role.

Critics Aren’t Happy

As you might imagine, critics of the gambling industry aren’t all that happy about the proposed changes that feature in the white paper. Louise Davies, who is the Director of Advocacy and Policy at the Christian Action Research and Education charity, said,

“After years of disappointment relating to this white paper it is galling to learn of more dither and delay from the government. The abuses of the gambling industry and the scale of gambling-related harms in Britain are crystal clear. There is no need for further consultation on measures that are broadly supported such as a statutory levy and affordability checks. We need legislation.”

For Liz and Charles Ritchie, who set up the Gambling With Lives charity after their son Jack died in 2017 at the age of 24, the suggestions made don’t go far enough. Liz Ritchie said,

“After a long fight we’ve won concessions on some of the key areas, but so much more needs to happen to reduce the horrendous harm caused by one of the most loosely-regulated gambling industries in the world. We’ve won the argument against a powerful gambling lobby but this is just the beginning. There’s another family devastated by gambling suicide every day and we won’t stop until the deaths do.”

A man in Wales watched his son’s addiction to gambling spiral out of control in the wake of his decision to open a betting account on his 18th birthday. His hope was that it would be made illegal for gambling companies to have anything to do with sport, equating the act of gambling with that of taking drugs, saying, “They shouldn’t be able to advertise gambling at all on TV. You can’t advertise cocaine, or heroin.”

The unnamed person is a realist, acknowledging that there is too much money involved for sports and gambling to be separated completely, but also pointing out that some people don’t have a healthy relationship with betting.

He said, “I love going to the races, knowing I’ll go in for six races, put a fiver on each and lose £30. That’s the majority of people. But for the minority, like my son, it’s not the races, it’s online slots, casinos, online bingo. It’s an addiction. They need protection.”

For many, what happens to the share prices of gambling companies in the immediate aftermath of the white paper’s publication will show whether the government went far enough or whether more could’ve been done. If there is little movement or share prices go up, the feeling will be that it should’ve gone further.

One of the biggest disappointments is that the white paper seems to suggest that no changes will be carried out to the way in which gambling advertising takes place in the UK. The general feeling is that the rules and regulations are already in place to successfully limit the extent to which gambling adverts can influence people.

The only real concession made is when the paper says, “Our evidence also suggests that operators should go further in their use of technology to target online adverts away from children and vulnerable people.” For critics, that isn’t good enough.

A Split Of Opinions

There is little doubt that gambling is a topic that seems to split parties, not just left from right. Though the right-wing should, in theory, be more in favour of gambling on account of the fact that it is about the most capitalist enterprise that you can engage in, not all members of the Conservative and Unionist Party are on the side of the white paper.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservative MP and Vice-Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gambling Related Harm was cautiously optimistic but also felt that not enough was in there to protect children.

Speaking on the matter he said, “I welcome this because this is at least a start, I think it’s a positive start. On advertising and children, I simply want to say: not far enough.”. 

As proof that that isn’t an opinion held by all Tories, however, Philip Davies, who is also a Conservative MP, said, “The Conservative party used to believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility, but that seems to have gone out of the window with these affordability check proposals. Do the punters themselves get any say at all over how they can afford to spend their own hard-earned money?”

On the other side of the argument is the approach of Labour. The Shadow Culture Secretary, Lucy Powell, pointed out that the Gambling Act of 2005 was introduced before smartphones were commonplace. As a result, there is a requirement to bring the gambling laws in the UK in line with how we act in the modern world.

Part of the problem, she suggests, comes from the ‘chaos’ that has been part of this government in recent years. Since the white paper was first promised in December 2020, the country has had ten different ministers in charge of delivering it, alongside three different Prime Ministers.

Frazer did at least admit that there is a need to bring the gambling laws up-to-date in the modern world. She said, “When gambling becomes addiction, it can wreck lives. Shattered families, lost jobs, foreclosed homes, jail time, suicide. These are all the most extreme scenarios. But it is important we acknowledge that for some families those worst fears for their loved ones have materialised.” She also pointed out that the rise of smartphone usage by punters means that ‘now there’s a Las Vegas on every phone’.