Anti-gambling advocates in the U.K. are reportedly furious as news breaks that ministers of Parliament are poised to back off from tough new measures designed to curb gambling addiction.
New regulations that were planned to be published and voted on in July had included a “polluter pays” tax on gambling firms to fund responsible gaming research and a ban on gambling advertisements on the shirts of football (soccer) players in Britain’s Premier League.
According to a report in London’s Daily Mail, officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have retreated from both proposals following opposition from gambling operators.
Responsible gaming advocacy group Gambling With Lives has launched a “Stop the Gambling Predators” campaign calling for tighter regulation of the betting industry. The campaign calls for tighter reform of the betting industry and tougher regulation. Gambling With Lives Co-Chairman Liz Ritchie, whose son killed himself due to a gambling addiction, blasted the plan to retreat from the new measures.
“If these reports are true, families bereaved by gambling-related suicide will be up in arms—this is not what we have been promised,” Ritchie told the Daily Mail. “At least one person dies as a result of gambling per day, so to protect the public from a voracious parasitic industry we need a ban on sponsorship of football including all advertising in grounds and a statutory levy for independent public health messaging and NHS treatment.”
Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith, who is a member of a parliamentary group battling gambling-related harm, told the newspaper, “I will go to war with the government on this. I will find ways to rebel. The evidence is clear about the damage problem gambling can cause. I will not compromise on the levy.”
As far as the advertising ban on team shirts, at least one Premier League team, Crystal Palace, is taking its own initiative on the subject. The team announced last week that it will replace the name of gambling firm W88 on its shirts next season.
Other teams are contemplating voluntary bans on gambling advertising. The others to have front-of-shirt gambling sponsors are Leeds United, West Ham United, Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Southampton, and Brentford.
