Policy paper - High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age

Command Paper: CP 835

ISBN: 978-1-5286-3581-3

Unique Ref: E02769112

Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport by Command of His Majesty on 27 April 2023

The gambling landscape has changed significantly since 2005. Few who were designing policy in the early 2000s could have foreseen the nature and extent of the changes which have since reshaped our society, the economy and this sector. Multinational tech businesses now provide gambling services which customers can engage with from almost anywhere and at any time of day or night. Newly available data and technology can both increase risks to players and facilitate innovative protections. Land-based gambling also finds itself in a very different place in light of these changes, with some of the assumptions which prevailed 18 years ago looking increasingly outdated. Likewise, our understanding of gambling-related harms and gambling disorder has developed enormously over recent years.

We launched this Review to take an objective, comprehensive look at the evidence. Our aim is to ensure our gambling regulation meets the challenges and seizes the opportunities which have come with the changes since the Gambling Act 2005 was passed. We received around 16,000 submissions to our Call for Evidence, and ministers and officials have held hundreds of meetings with a huge range of stakeholders to inform a package of policies which will make our gambling laws fit for the digital age. We are enormously grateful to all of those who have contributed to our Review, especially those with personal experience of gambling-related addiction and harms who have spoken out about their own struggles or those of people they love.

At the heart of our Review is making sure that we have the balance right between consumer freedoms and choice on the one hand, and protection from harm on the other. It has become clear that we must do more to protect those at risk of addiction and associated unaffordable losses. We must also pay particular attention to making sure children are protected, including as they become young adults and for the first time are able to gamble on a wide range of products. Prevention of harm will always be better than a cure, so we are determined to strengthen consumer protections and prevent exploitative practices.

This can and should be done in a proportionate way. Millions of us enjoy gambling every year and most suffer no ill effects, so state intervention must be targeted to prevent addictive and harmful gambling. Adults who choose to spend their money on gambling are free to do so, and we should not inhibit the development of a sustainable and properly regulated industry which pays taxes and provides employment to service that demand. What we will not permit is for operators to place commercial objectives ahead of customer wellbeing so that vulnerable people are exploited.

This white paper outlines a comprehensive package of new measures to achieve these objectives across all facets of gambling regulation, building on our work over recent years. Working with the Gambling Commission and others, we will now make online gambling safer with an overhaul of game design rules to remove the features known to exacerbate risks, and put new obligations on operators to prevent unchecked and unaffordable spending. We will tackle aggressive advertising practices like using bonuses in ways which exacerbate harms. We will also develop independent messaging that raises awareness of the risks of gambling harm while helping to remove the fear of stigma that stops people coming forward for help. We will work with the industry to create an ombudsman to adjudicate complaints and order redress when things go wrong. We will modernise the rules for land-based gambling and make sure that all gambling, be it online or offline, is overseen by a beefed up, better funded and more proactive Gambling Commission which can make full use of technology and data to keep abreast of the industry.

Great Britain has been seen as a world leader in the oversight of gambling, with our comparatively low problem gambling rate but internationally successful gambling sector. I hope this new package and the policies which we will work with the Gambling Commission and others to implement will continue to be seen as world leading.

To help ensure that, I encourage all of those with an interest in gambling regulation to continue working with us as we refine the ideas, consult on specifics, and deliver real change.

The Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport

Click for the full statement here.

Thursday, 27 April 2023