Warning on gambling shake-up as key demands to be watered down
LOnG-aWaitED curbs on gambling are set to be watered down, causing fury for industry campaigners.
a mandatory levy on betting companies, which would pay for vital addiction treatment, is at risk of being dropped from proposals expected in the coming weeks.
Firms would be allowed to continue with voluntary contributions, albeit with a ‘significant uplift’, sources have said. Sponsorship in sport may also be allowed to continue unabated after a backlash from football clubs over plans to ban gambling adverts on shirts.
and while bookmakers will be forced to carry out financial checks on punters, the amount they can spend unchecked has not yet been agreed. However, in one victory for campaigners, online casino stakes will be capped at between £2 and £5 – putting them in line with machines in high street shops – and ‘ViP’ schemes rewarding the biggest losers will be banned.
Last night former tory leader Sir iain Duncan Smith said he believed the long- overdue White Paper had not yet been finalised and the statutory levy could still be included.
‘i personally think they have to have a statutory levy,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘these are companies that make a shedload of profit.’ and he warned ministers they will face a rebellion if they ‘emasculate’ the shake-up.
annie ashton, 40, who lost her husband Luke last year after he was ‘consumed’ by betting bonuses, said: ‘these are pathetic half-baked measures that will not prevent harm. How can ministers claim to have listened and acknowledged the dangers of the predatory practices of the industry with this?
‘there is nothing worse than the feeling that you are talking to a brick wall after losing a loved one to gamblingrelated suicide.’
Liz ritchie, who lost her son Jack, 24, after he was bombarded with offers and emails on his mobile phone, said: ‘More than 400 people take their life every year because of gambling, each one of those is a devastated family, and if the Government doesn’t act many more people will die.
‘We need an end to all gambling advertising, we need preventative affordability checks when losses reach £100 a month and we need a smart statutory levy on gambling industry income to pay for truly independent public health messaging, research and treatment.’
it came as doctors demanded coroners should be allowed to cite gambling as a factor in suicide when recording causes of death. the British Medical association also wants gambling to be treated as a health risk and called for tighter industry regulation at its annual conference yesterday.
the medics warned the nHS needs more resources and training dedicated to treating problem gambling.
‘Like talking to a brick wall’
THE Mail welcomes many measures in the Government’s new bill to tackle the scourge of internet gambling addiction, which devastates personal and family lives.
Maximum stakes in online casinos limited to between £2 and £5, free bets banned and no inducements for those incurring heavy losses are all sensible and useful measures.
And while ministers have dropped plans to stop gambling firms sponsoring Premier League football shirts, they are seeking to thrash out a voluntary agreement.
But the apparent shelving of a provision forcing betting companies to fund addiction treatment is deeply disturbing.
These firms are making billions out of habitual gamblers, many of whom are sucked in to losing more than they can afford, sometimes with fatal consequences.
The least they should do is help pay for the social and psychological wreckage they leave behind.