Local risk assessments won't help address the national risk of FOBTs
Campaign for Fairer Gambling
The Campaign for Fairer Gambling writes that local area risk assessments will do nothing to reduce the harm which addiction to machine gambling is causing problem gamblers.
The Gambling Commission introduced two new regulations last week which were accompanied by a flurry of media activity. The first regulation will require gambling premises to offer a “multi-operator” self-exclusion scheme. This will mean that instead of excluding from each operator individually, it is now possible to fill in one form which will be enough to grant exclusion from all related premises in a locality.
The second will require gambling premises to carry out local area risk assessments. Sarah Harrison, the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, appeared on BBC News arguing that this would give local authorities greater power as it would force operators to focus on local risks.
By “local risks”, the Commission means identifying “vulnerable groups” who are perhaps more predisposed to harm. It would then be up to operators to ensure they can demonstrate how these risks might be mitigated. However, even if vulnerable groups are identified, they are likely to be transient. Homeless people are ten times more likely to be problem gamblers, and the homeless are transient by definition.
As there was a 43% increase in betting shops on the high street between 2004 and 2012, there is every reason to suspect that vulnerable people might travel to the town centre to use a betting shop that is nowhere near where they live. Will vulnerable people all over a borough be considered a “local risk” or just those in the immediate vicinity of a shop?
How betting shops will mitigate such risks remains to be seen, but it is likely to be yet another tick-the-box exercise – something we have come to expect from a Commission that favours a player-orientated approach to regulation. The premise for this approach is that harm is more likely to be experienced by the vulnerable. But when more than a third of FOBT users experience harm, would a risk assessment on particular gambling products and their suitability not be a more worthwhile exercise?
Self-exclusion is another measure that focuses on the player. It offers the gambler the opportunity to self-bar him/herself from gambling premises. The new system will still rely on staff recognising self-excluded customers, but instead of going to each individual operator, it is now possible to fill in just one form. In the pilot scheme in Medway last year, 23 people signed up in just six months – which is a lot of faces for staff to have to recognise. So essentially, the Commission have made it easier to sign up to a system that doesn’t work.
The BBC tested the scheme and found that they were able to gamble in eight out of the 10 shops included in the pilot. The Association of British Bookmakers criticised the test as they claimed the journalist would have been recognised in more shops if he was a genuine gambler. But a paper produced by Professor Mark Griffiths for the Gambling Commission says regular gamblers are more likely to be loyal to a venue than problem gamblers. This makes sense as problem gamblers are there solely for the gambling rather than the social aspect.
The vast majority of self-exclusions relate to Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), the bookies’ roulette machines that take bets of up to £100 every 20 seconds. Tony Franklin got addicted to FOBTs and told the Guardian he had taken “extreme steps” to exclude himself from all betting shops, but it has not worked. He has still been allowed to gamble and is now facing bankruptcy.
Even if self-exclusion was effective, people like Tony have already experienced a great deal of harm. The 2005 licensing objective, which the Commission is responsible for upholding, is the “prevention of harm”. So it is surely time for the Commission to pay attention to research that shows reducing the maximum stake is the most effective means for reducing gambling related harm.
Westminster City and Manchester City Councils in conjunction with GeoFutures have shown a strong correlation between the location of betting shops and high-risk areas of vulnerability. With robust independent Harvard research determining that FOBTs are more associated with disordered gambling than any other gambling activity to a four-fold degree, it is clear that FOBTs are a national risk, with more deprived, high unemployment localities being at greater risk.
93 Councils are currently locked in negotiation with the Government, seeking the stakes to be cut to £2 per spin on FOBTs – a call that was backed by Manchester, but not Westminster. Risk assessments are added to the ever increasing pile of long-grass measures that include self-exclusion pilot schemes, £50 staking thresholds, responsible gambling messaging and advertising, account-based play, algorithms and staff intervention.
How many more “long grass” exercises is DCMS willing to entertain before they realise what governments from the 1960s until 2005 understood perfectly well: the best way to control machine gambling in easily accessible gambling premises, protect the vulnerable and encourage responsible gambling is through the maximum size of stake.
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