Damian Collins, the Undersecretary of State for Online Safety at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), will be leading efforts to review the U.K.’s Gambling Act. He is the fourth minister named to do so since the review began.
The review was put on ice following the announcement of the resignation of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, adding another level of uncertainty to the process.
Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) CEO Michael Dugher, whose organization is an industry advocate, greeted Collins’s appointment enthusiastically: “Many congratulations to Damian Collins on his appointment as Minister at DCMS. Highly rated and respected, and thoroughly well-deserved. Someone who actually knows something about his brief too – whatever is the world coming to?!”
Collins’s predecessor Chris Philip was not as highly regarded by the industry. He had called for stricter regulations of fixed-odds betting terminals and planned to cut the maximum stake permitted on the terminals. He was one of several dozen of Johnson’s ministers who resigned in the run-up to his own departure.
The responsible gaming and harm minimization advocate GambleAware has called on the government to accelerate the completion of the government’s white paper on reform of the Gambling Act.
Zoë Osmond, GambleAware CEO, declared, “As we await the publication of the White Paper, which is set to be the most comprehensive gambling review in 15 years, we sincerely hope the current political situation will not result in further delay.”
Osmond added, “Millions of people are currently at risk of experiencing gambling harms across Great Britain and up to 7 percent of the population may be affected by the gambling behavior of someone close to them.”
Some gaming critics have argued that inflation in the U.K. has increased financial pressure on consumers and made gambling addiction more of a concern.
This economic uncertainty has also caused people to spend less on lottery tickets, causing the U.K. National Lottery to see a drastic dip in ticket sales, although it has reported the best-ever return to good causes.
This year the National Lottery generated over £8 billion (US$9.53 billion) in revenue and raised £1.9 billion (US$2.26 billion) for charity. Camelot, the lottery operator, commented, “Achieving National Lottery sales of over £8 billion two years in a row while maintaining very high levels of public participation — despite the challenging and changing external environment — proves that our strategy of offering great consumer choice in a safe and convenient way continues to be hugely successful.”
Despite this good news, lottery sales declined from £240 million (US$286.15 million) to £3.44 billion (US$4.1 billion).Camelot attributed this to increased competition for people’s attention after Covid restrictions have receded.
