Campaign for Fairer Gambling criticise 'incomplete and misleading' stats used by bookmakers
It seems the Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) is now scraping the very bottom of the barrel in its search for evidence (or at least what they try to describe as evidence) to try and portray a crime free environment in their betting shops.
Not content with publishing one version of a flawed Freedom of Information (FOI) response, the ABB has now tried to package this information up as if it is an evidence based report from the police themselves, when it clearly is not. Despite the fact that the Campaign previously used an evidence and logic based rebuttal on Central Lobby, William Hill have seen fit to re-market this misinformation.
You can imagine the ABB PR spinners concocting this charade. “Let’s compare betting shops with other retailers that have got more premises and larger premises than we have and ignore the comparison of incidence per premises. Let’s choose places where it is easy to commit crimes like petty theft, such as clothing and convenience stores. Let’s craft Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to police forces, use whatever comes in, even though we know it will be incomplete and misleading and not comparative.” And that is exactly what they have done – again.
Under current planning regulations, betting shops are regarded more like financial services, such as banks or building societies, rather than retailers. But William Hill knew that comparing with those premises would not help them with their crime stats. The ABB burdening police forces with FOI requests for the purpose of a PR spin exercise is a disgraceful abuse of the FOI Act.
Without providing any background to the number of police forces contained within the responses, the number of betting shops included within the forces that did respond compared to other retailers, or highlighting the distinct differences between the types of retailers looked at, William Hill is not presenting the full facts.
Even since these FOIs were first used in June, William Hill has been the subject of numerous incidents and claims surrounding their commitment to combatting crime in betting shops and ensuring the safety of their staff. They have been accused of misleading politicians – going from a position of single staffing not being acceptable in their shops, to rolling it out with the proviso that no member of staff would be left on their own during the evening and now even reneging on that pledge. As Graham Jones MP said they have “no scruples. William Hill’s hypocrisy is shocking, clearly putting profits before employees.’
A U-turn in itself regarding the safety of shop workers is bad enough, but especially so when considering only last month one of their workers was horrifically attacked whilst lone working in the evening. Last year two William Hill workers were attacked by an FOBT addict in Scotland. All this follows the needless murder of Ladbrokes manager Andrew Iacovou last year, again lone staffing – whose wife has now called for an end to the practise. Yet William Hill see fit to ignore their staff, who work in the shops every day, and march on under the banner of spurious FOIs.
William Hill would clearly rather re-spin old spin than provide factual insight into what actually happens on their premises.
1. How many FOBTs have been attacked and vandalised on their premises in the last 12 months? A Ladbrokes whistle blower says 1,500 a year across their estate of shops.
2. How many suspicious activity reports on FOBTs have been reported and investigated?
3. How many reports of staff abuse?
4. How much is illegally lost on FOBTs by underage gamblers?
5. How many shops like those in Newham have been found to “attracted crime, disorder and underage gambling” without the imposition of serious penalties and conditions?
6. How many crimes have actually been reported to the police – by the very company that instructed its employees not to report crime to the police?
Did anyone from William Hill attend the community meeting in Mitcham where 250 residents expressed fears about crime, alcoholism, drug-dealing and betting shops driving people out of Mitcham town centre?
Can there be any more damning indictment of a business than an attempt to mislead the public about associated levels and severity of crime, solely to assist in promoting its self-serving commercial interests?
With a 2005 Gambling Act licensing objective being the “prevention of association with crime”, licensee William Hill is attempting to disguise how it, and the betting sector, is in breach of the Act.
