UK government outlines plan for review of gambling reforms
The DCMS and the Gambling Commission will evaluate whether the reforms introduced have had any unintended consequences.
UK.- The UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced details of how it will evaluate the gambling reforms that have been introduced since last year’s white paper. The department will work with the regulator, the Gambling Commission, to conduct an in-depth evaluation and assess whether measures taken to date have had any unintended consequences.
The plan outlines the questions the DCMS seeks to answer, the types of data it plans to collect, the research methods used to collect the data, and the research governance arrangements in place.
The National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) will also play a role in the review, which will include an evaluation of measures such as affordability checks and the new stake limits for online slots. Research methods will include consumer and operator surveys, in-depth interviews, focus groups and tracking and monitoring.
The DCMS said: “The impacts and outcomes of specific proposals will be evaluated individually, as well as in a package to understand the collective impact of policy measures that have been implemented so far and can be evaluated within the lifetime of this evaluation.”
There will also be a lived experience panel comprising people who have experience of gambling harm. The Gambling Commission said there would be some overlap in membership between the existing Lived Experience Advisory Group and this new project-specific group convened for the purposes of the evaluation.
Bryony Sheldon, director of policy for the Gambling Commission, said: “Inevitably, the evaluation will involve choices and some pragmatism in terms of where to prioritise efforts. We are finalising where best to invest the resource and expertise of NatCen within the 60 plus measures of the Gambling Act Review White Paper, with a view to commencing fieldwork in the coming months.”
The Gambling Commission said that it and NatCen would be reaching out to stakeholders in the coming weeks and that more details will be published into 2025.
The announcement of the review couldn’t come soon enough for some stakeholders. The British horseracing sector is concerned that affordability checks are contributing to a financial crisis by causing a decline in betting on horses. Meanwhile, more reforms are on the way. The new mandatory levy on gambling operators to fund research, education and treatment will be introduced in April 2025.
Gambling participation in Britain
Meanwhile, the Gambling Commission has published its latest data on gambling participation in Britain. The second wave of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain: Statistics on Gambling Participation shows an overall participation rate of 48 per cent, which is in line with last year. Excluding lottery, gambling participation was 28 per cent.
The online gambling participation rate was level with 2023 at 37 per cent (17 per cent excluding lottery draws). In-person gambling participation was 29 per cent (18 per cent without lottery). This was also level with last year. Scratchcards and sports betting had a reported participation of 12 per cent each, and 7 per cent of respondents said they played online instant win games.
