Reviewing the Gambling Review - part three: 'Responsible' gambling
Campaign for Fairer Gambling
The Campaign for Fairer Gambling publishes the latest in a series of articles about the DCMS Review of 'Gambling Machines and Social Responsibility Measures'.
Enormous credit must be given to Tracey Crouch at DCMS in pushing for and bringing forward the Review of 'Gambling Machines and Social Responsibility Measures'. When a backbencher, Tracey Crouch spoke out in Parliament against FOBTs and their effects. As a minister at DCMS she wanted to get on with the job and introduce this Review nearly a year ago, but was apparently blocked by George Osborne.
The Review foreword spells out how this government correctly perceives social responsibility. The sector should be "doing all it can to protect customers and communities, including those who are just about managing". Previous messaging from DCMS focused solely on pathological problem gambling.
Whilst less than 1% of adults are estimated to be pathologically addicted gamblers (around 600,000 people), but with consequential harm spilling over into the lives of others, DCMS now realizes that millions of people are affected. The prior focus on the pathological only (called problem gamblers in the Review) has meant that the wider picture of at-risk gamblers, (these people are problem gamblers) of around 2% to 3% of the adult population has previously been ignored along with those who suffer from bouts of what the campaign calls “binge gambling”.
"Those just about managing" was a phrase the Prime Minister quoted in her first Downing Street speech. There is a demographic that is both cash poor and time poor. Accessibility to gambling is not an asset to this group. The far right libertarian view, which Mrs. May disapproves of, argues that gambling is somehow a benefit to this demographic. This "let them eat cake" philosophy has no place in modern society.
The demographic that is at risk of wider consequential harm is the cash poor, but time rich demographic. Young males with minimal family commitments, often unemployed or working minimal hours, in a peer group on the fringe of criminal activity, are very susceptible to gambling accessibility and marketing. The concept that “responsible" gambling messaging could have any impact on this demographic is laughable.
The only measure that DCMS itself has introduced to address "responsible" gambling on FOBTs is the £50 threshold measure. Correspondence between DCMS and the Gambling Commission in 2012 raised questions about the level of FOBT gambling at stakes more than £50. It took until 2014 to create a policy and then until 2015 to enact it.
The 2016 DCMS evaluation of this measure found that stakes above £50 had decreased but stakes in the £40 to £50 range increased correspondingly and was not able to tell the extent to which the measure had an effect had any positive effect on harm reduction. A lot of time could have been saved if DCMS had sought the Campaigns’ opinion.
The Review does imply though that DCMS will still rely on the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB). This is the most serious flaw in the Review document. The current RGSB strategy was concocted under the false premises that the Gambling Commission has a "statutory framework" duty to consider the "freedom of the individual" to gamble.
Sir Christopher Kelly, chair of the RGSB, has a background of public service standards, which he risks discrediting in his RGSB role. The Campaign has a robust independent academic analysis of the RGSB strategy and its failings, which has not yet been published.
With the name change of the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) to Gamble Aware and the appointment of Kate Lampard as Chair combined with her opening comments that "Gambling companies are taking the mickey", it may be that the "responsible" gambling establishment has been forced to move in a different direction under the new government.
The historical mantra of the RGT under the old Chair Neil Golden was that it was all about the individual not the product. How convenient. Ms Lampard though felt there was an "inherent risk" in FOBTs after only ten minutes of play.
It is not just a feeling – there is evidence - FOBTs are more associated with disordered gambling than any other gambling activity!
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