Politics Home Article | How does your gambling grow, Prime Minister?

The Labour Government has made economic growth its central mission, calling it “the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of more people.” It has also launched a multi-billion pound Pride in Place strategy to create “safer, healthier neighbourhoods” by working with local communities. This commitment to localism has since been reinforced by the pledge of our new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, for further devolution across the UK.

The gambling sector regularly claims that it benefits the economy. The Starmer administration often shared this narrative, for instance when gambling minister Baroness Twycross recently told the Lords Liaison Committee that the Government wanted to see the regulated sector grow. When Lord Filkin countered that there would no doubt be strong public support for tougher action on gambling advertising, the Baroness said: “I am not sure it is really my role to do just what the public thinks.” Public, take note.  

However, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) data shows gambling’s Gross Value Added (GVA) has fallen by 40 per cent in real terms since 2019, while the other sectors the department oversees have grown. Indeed, the evidence shows that the gambling sector adds relatively little to the economy, thereby limiting growth and productivity. This is particularly true for online gambling, with many sites offshore, which also imposes significant costs through gambling harm.

Venues with only gambling machines, commonly known as Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs), are spread unevenly across Britain and are concentrated in the most deprived areas. They often deceptively display the title “Casino” despite not holding casino licences.

Some AGCs and Bingo operations are in breach of the “80/20 rule”, whereby only 20 per cent of machines should be of the highest stakes category B machines, rather than the less dangerous category C and D ones. Some AGCs appear to inflate machine numbers by counting stacks of tablets (see below image) as gaming machines, allowing more Category B machines on site.

The Gambling Commission’s new rules, which take effect on 29 July, require “non-compliant” gaming machines to be “removed from premises quickly”. Yet they were announced six months earlier, allowing venues to continue to make millions of pounds from the 80/20 loophole in the meantime.

By contrast, the Commission has dedicated a large amount of time, effort and money into prosecuting gamblers who bet on the 2024 general election date with alleged inside information, where the gain was just hundreds of pounds.

The Commission will seemingly come down hard on anyone who gets one over on the bookie, no matter how small the amount, but it is much less hard on the bookies themselves. In recent years the Commission has not removed a licence from a big gambling operator, despite repeated failures.

In the 1980s, Ladbrokes Casinos and Playboy Casinos did have their licences revoked after the Gaming Board was willing to invoke the spirit of the 1968 Act under the Home Office. The move from Home Office to DCMS, from the Board to the Commission, and the 2005 Gambling Act, have all contributed to the current incompetence and complacency of gambling oversight.

The Commission has this year been given £26 million by the Treasury to crack down on the illicit gambling market. This month the Gambling Reform APPG held a hearing dedicated to growing concerns around this illicit market. Multiple experts spoke but neither the Gambling Commission nor DCMS attended. 

Representatives from both bodies did attend the Lords Liaison hearing into gambling advertising, where they repeatedly argued that restricting legal advertising would strengthen the illicit market. But there is strong evidence that widespread advertising normalises gambling, and therefore grows the whole market, including the illicit side. The logical response is to tackle all gambling advertising while blocking illicit sites.

The Whitehall and Westminster machine appears to have made a few late moves in favour of the gambling sector. The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 includes “Gambling Impact Assessments” that give councils more powers to challenge gambling premises appearing in their communities. But a late amendment, by persons unknown, seriously weakens those powers.

A recent appointment by DCMS of the government’s first Music Champion was bestowed upon Michael Dugher, the former CEO and Chair of the gambling trade lobbying body. The odds of gambling friendly Parliamentarians being invited to concerts may have just shortened.

Also, the CMS committee made public a letter to the Commission on the controversial matter of Financial Risk Assessments. It uses the term “recreational bettors” rather than “gamblers” and seems inappropriately close to one that the bookies themselves would write.

This is all in stark contrast to the reality of gambling harm. This month, the coroner at the inquest of Gareth Evans, who took his own life after becoming addicted to gambling, determined that William Hill had failed to assess the risk and intervene. Extracts from the last letter Gareth wrote describe the anguish of living with extreme gambling harm, and in interviews his mother, father, and sister were so eloquent in telling their story. The family, supported by the charity Gambling with Lives, called for an end to gambling advertising. Each marketing message is an invasive trigger towards harm for many.

Andy Burnham has spoken passionately about the need to tackle gambling harm. Tackling Whitehall and Westminster will be part of that agenda.

Over to you, Prime Minister.