A think tank led by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has stated that the authorities should place banks under a legal duty of care in order to help gambling addicts stop spending money they cannot actually afford to lose.
According to a study held by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the Government should establish a new ombudsman figure empowered to order the gambling operators to slow the gameplay pace for problem gamblers, to reduce their betting stakes, or to stop accepting more bets from a problem gambler for a limited period. The think tank has suggested that such actions should be triggered by a new ombudsman figure based on data retrieved as a result of tracking problem gamblers’ betting patterns and habits.
As reported by The Telegraph, if this happens, banks would be expected to share limited and necessary financial information with a newly-created bureau designed on a credit rating agency that is capable of measuring the level of risk that a customer of a certain betting firm is facing. Then, the bureau would advise the gambling ombudsman under a duty to inform gambling companies about gamblers that are considered at risk and require a specific action to help them put an end to their spending.
UK Gamblers Lost Over £14.5 Billion on Gambling in 2019
The aforementioned report was backed by Labour Member of Parliament Carolyn Harris and Sir Iain Duncan Smith. It warned that gambling has become more accessible than ever thanks to the development of technology, which has allowed gambling operators to affect dangerous behaviour like they never did before.
As revealed by the report, in 2019 alone, UK gamblers lost more than £14.5 billion to different forms of gambling, including casinos, lotteries, various betting platforms, with the losses contributing to the profits of the gambling operators. A quarter of the overall profits of the country’s gambling sector was generated by problem gamblers, who account for only 0.8% of the population.
Furthermore, the report found that regular gamblers were more than 6 times more likely to place a bet online during the coronavirus pandemic in comparison to the period before the Covid-19 outbreak. Regular male gamblers were more likely to gamble over the Internet more often during coronavirus lockdown in the UK, compared to their betting habits from before the pandemic.
The founder of the Centre for Social Justice, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, explained that the gambling industry could now be considered a real danger to the local communities. According to the organisation, it was now high time for the authorities to do whatever possible to control the increasing problem gambling rates that have been associated with a strong connection to social problems, such as crime, family breakdown, debt, other addiction, etc.
As The Telegraph has written, campaigners claim that only a wholesale reform can effectively deal with the challenges associated with the practices used by the gambling industry to attract and retain their customers. They believe that the establishment of the figure of a strong independent ombudsman to analyse important banking information and identify players that need support for their problem gambling behaviour would help the UK Government to efficiently support and protect such players.
- Author
Daniel Williams
