ALARM AT TEENAGER ‘PROBLEM’ GAMBLERS
Powerful Dáil committee on betting says new Bill must stop bookies from targeting vulnerable young people
A BAN on gambling adverts before the watershed time of 9pm and outlawing highly addictive gambling machines have been recommended as part of a drive to tackle serious gambling problems.
Concerns have been raised about the impact of intensive gambling advertising, particularly on children and the 3,400 teenagers between 15 and 16 that have been identified as engaging in ‘problem gambling’, with legislation tackling the sector promised for over a decade.
Former justice minister, Senator Michael McDowell, who is a member of the Oireachtas
Justice Committee that recommended these changes, told the Irish Daily Mail that the Government’s long-awaited legislation to regulate gambling did not go far enough.
Now, it has taken on a series of new measures to prevent the ‘absolute mayhem’ that gambling can have on individual lives and families, Senator McDowell said.
They have proposed, among a sweeping series of measures, to ban online and print media gambling advertising ‘as children have access to both before the watershed period’.
In addition, they have recommended that ‘all gambling industry involvement in sport should be terminated immediately’ saying ‘the ongoing harm to children is indefensible.’
Estimates of gambling addiction in Ireland range from 50,000 to 250,000 individuals affected, with multiple family members in each of these cases also directly affected.
Regulation of the betting industry and the creation of a gambling regulator have been promised for more than a decade.
Senator McDowell told the Irish Daily Mail: ‘The Bill as presented to us was, in my view, very neutral on the subject of gambling.’
He said that he has witnessed through his work as a criminal and civil barrister ‘companies collapse because their money is grabbed by an employee or partner or something, and gambled away’.
‘The damage that gambling can do if it’s uncontrolled, is huge,’ he said.
While recognising that problem gambling can lead to suicide, he said it’s also a case of ‘families being destroyed… we really have to have a realistic attitude towards the control of gambling.’
He said that betting arcades were placed in socially deprived areas where vulnerable people were likely to use them.
‘They are not in Donnybrook or Ailesbury Road or Shrewsbury Road. They are, they are put in places where the most vulnerable sections of our community are likely to use them,’ he said.
The gambling industry has remained unregulated, despite Irish punters gambling €1.36 billion a year, making us the fourth biggest gamblers in the EU according to figures released last year.
The committee, which published its pre-legislative scrutiny report on the Government’s Gambling Regulation Bill yesterday, was provided with evidence that 3,400 teenagers aged between 15 and 16 ‘engaged in problem gambling’. It is urging the Government to treat gambling adverts with the ‘same approach’ it
The damage is huge’
has taken to cigarettes and alcohol. Cigarettes are currently not permitted to be advertised and alcohol can only be advertised after the watershed time of 9pm until 3am.
The committee outlined: ‘It is entirely unacceptable that children are being exposed to hundreds of gambling adverts every year on television, radio and online.’
The committee’s recommendations will seek to drastically curtail betting companies operating here. The proposals go much further than initially planned by the Government. They include:
• A ban on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs), which have been dubbed the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling due to their highly addictive nature. FOBTs are fast-paced slot machines where punters can lose thousands of euro in minutes.
• A ban on credit cards being used for online gambling.
• The extension of the UK’s Gamestop self-exclusion register in the UK to Ireland. The system excludes customers from all betting operators when they self-exclude from any outlet.
• Escalating fines for the gambling sector where they breach self-exclusion rules.
• Strengthening automated online verification checks to make sure minors are not able to gamble.
• Allowing background checks on punters when they sign up to a gambling website to establish if they have ‘any financial vulnerabilities’.
Research from the European School Survey Project in 2019 showed that the ‘problem gambling incidence rate’ in 15 and 16-year-old boys in Ireland is five times higher the estimated problem gambling incidence among the adult population.
The Irish Bookmaker’s Association said that had it voluntarily introduced a watershed ban in January.
Flutter – the umbrella company for Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Pokerstars, Betfair and a host of other betting companies – said they have 180 staff who conduct 1,000 reviews each month across their UK and Irish divisions. The figure of how many customers they have in these markets was not included.
A spokesman for the Department of Justice said that the recommendations ‘will now be examined by officials’.