Bishop says children face ‘immoral’ gambling epidemic

THE Church of England has accused the makers of games such as Fortnite of “dubious morality” in encouraging children to gamble.

The Bishop of St Albans, the Rt Rev Dr Alan Smith, said companies were cynically encouraging gambling with in-game prizes based on chance. “Behind some of these games is some dubious morality,” said Dr Smith, who speaks for the Church on gambling.

“Whilst they are within the letter of the law, they have moved the goalposts significantly in the direction of normalising and socialising gambling among young people. All the signs are that we are going to have an epidemic because the games like Fortnite are socialising gambling through ‘skins’ and winning prizes.”

Skins are virtual weapons or character attributes which children buy or win and can then convert into cash and gamble on lottery-style sites. Most popular are in-game loot boxes, digital grab bags containing prizes for which players pay real or virtual currency.

“Parents should be very careful in letting their children play any of these games that appear to be designed to encourage gambling later in life,” Dr Smith told The Daily Telegraph.

The Government has also pledged to cut stakes on fixed-odds machines but is proposing to delay it to 2020 to allow the industry to adapt. The current maximum stake of £100 is estimated to bring in £400million a year in tax.

Dr Smith said companies’ claims to support responsible gambling were “humbug.” And their slogan “When the Fun Stops, Stop” – which flashed up Fun in big letters rather than Stop – was “totally hypocritical,” he said. He called for the Government to introduce a compulsory levy, as many companies were refusing to pay the voluntary levy to go towards treatment of addicts.