Gambling industry escalates campaign against affordability checks on punters
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The gambling industry has stepped up its campaign against affordability checks, insisting tougher measures would drive more punters to the black market.
The Betting and Gaming Council, the lobby group led by former Labour MP Michael Dugher, said that while it was in favour of enhanced spending checks, ministers should target problem gamblers rather than adopting blanket measures.
It called for a balance to be struck to ensure vulnerable people were protected while avoiding a stringent crackdown that could push gamblers to unlicensed sites in the growing black market.
The call marks an escalation in rhetoric from the gambling industry as the Government gears up for an overhaul of betting laws in the UK.
Affordability checks, which would force punters to show payslips or bank statements to prevent unaffordable losses, and lower maximum bets are among the measures under consideration.
The council commissioned a survey by YouGov which found fewer than one in five British punters would be willing to submit to affordability checks, while 58pc would be opposed to the move.
Mr Dugher described the polling as a “wake-up call” for ministers as they prepare to publish a much-delayed white paper on the reforms in the spring.
“We strongly support the gambling review as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to raise standards and promote safer gambling,” he said.
“Ministers have said it will be an evidence-led process, and these findings are a wake-up call showing the potential dangers of introducing blanket affordability checks on anyone who likes a flutter.
“We believe that technology should be used to identify those showing signs of problem gambling so that swift interventions can take place.”
It echoes comments by Jette Nygaard-Andersen, chief executive of Ladbrokes owner Entain, who called for a “healthy balance” in the upcoming reforms.
In her first interview since taking the helm, she told The Telegraph that overly tough measures would force gamblers underground.
But Matt Zarb-Cousin, director of the Clean Up Gambling campaign, described the references to the black market as a “classic distraction tactic”.
“The Gambling Commission itself has said there’s no evidence that increasing regulation has caused an uptick in use of unregulated sites, and there are plenty of things that the regulator could do if that ever became a problem,” he said.
Gambling companies have also been accused of exaggerating the scale of black market betting.
The Betting and Gaming Council frequently cites a PwC report claiming the number of people using unlicensed gambling sites has more than doubled to 460,000.
However, Neil McArthur, chief executive of the Gambling Commission, said the report was “not consistent with the intelligence picture”, adding it did not distinguish between real gamblers and automated bots.
The domestic crackdown comes even as British betting companies race to cash in on the easing of gambling restrictions on sports betting in the US.
Flutter, which owns Paddy Power and Betfair, dominates the US market with its American brand FanDuel, while Entain said on Friday that expansion in new regions would allow it to “at least treble” the size of its business.
