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More protection needed for problem gamblers

Joanna Faith
Written By:
Joanna Faith
Posted:
Updated:
22/03/2022

The Gambling Commission is not doing enough to protect “at risk” gamblers, the National Audit Office (NAO) has said.

The NAO, which monitors how government spends public money, said the Commission should do more to ensure regulation protects gamblers effectively.

The Gambling Commission, which regulates the betting industry, has annual funding of £19m and almost all of this comes from licence fees paid by gambling operators.

There are an estimated 1.8 million ‘at risk’ gamblers and 395,000 ‘problem’ gamblers in the UK, according to the NAO.

It claims the Commission is failing to keep up with technological advancements in the industry.

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, said: “Licensed gambling has grown by 57 per cent – £4.1bn – over the last decade mainly due to a massive increase in online and smartphone gambling at sites like onlinecasino-jr.com.

“Yet the Gambling Commission is a small regulator in a huge and fast-evolving industry. While the Commission has made improvements, gambling regulation lags behind the industry. The Commission and government need to work together to ensure that regulation keeps pace with the risk to gamblers.”

A spokesperson for the Gambling Commission, said: “We agree with the report’s assessment that we face the significant challenge of regulating a dynamic and developing industry. It also underlines the constraints that our current funding arrangements presents and we are developing proposals to discuss this with Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport.

“Everyone at the Commission is absolutely committed to drastically reducing gambling harm and work hard every day to make the maximum impact for the greatest amount of consumers within the resources we currently have.”

Gamblers in the UK will be banned from using credit cards from April, the Gambling Commission announced earlier this year. It revealed around 800,000 people gamble on credit card, with one in five of those being classed as ‘problem gamblers’.