Welcome to 2023 – the year which we hope will finally see the first steps to major reform of gambling regulation.
We’re now expecting the White Paper in February. There have been some good signs about what it might contain, including real growth in support for a statutory levy to pay for independent research, education and treatment. For more on the need for a levy, please do read Liz’s brilliant piece in The Times. You can read here (non-paywall version).
Also, there have been good signs about proper affordability checks to ensure real interventions before people have been given a serious addiction.
It seems that the biggest gap will be restrictions around advertising and sponsorship. This omission is extraordinary given the weight of evidence on the impact of advertising on addiction – reinforced by research published last week – and the massive unpopularity of gambling advertising amongst the general public and gamblers themselves.
A huge amount of effort has gone into the advocacy for reform – not least from so many of the GwL families, so thank you to everyone involved. I will provide a full update following the White Paper’s release.
The imminence of the White Paper means that there has been even more focus on gambling issues across the media. Earlier this month John Myers, who lost his son Ryan in 2014, made a powerful appearance in a Fifth Estate investigation into the liberalisation of Canada’s gambling laws, as did GwL Strategy Director, Will Prochaska. You can watch the full documentary below (the section featuring John and Will is roughly from 14:40 to 20:00).
The Fifth Estate – Sports betting in Canada: Are we making a bad gamble?
GwL’s Head of Education, James Grimes, was on the BBC Breakfast sofa recently too and made many key points about how gambling harm impacts family and friends. You can watch the full interview below.
James also wrote a piece for the Daily Mail that was part of a bigger story about gambling sponsorship in football – you can read that here.
James Grimes on BBC Breakfast
Thanks to David Wheeler too, who plays for Wycombe Wanderers Football Club. David has used his platform to call for a ban on gambling advertising in football and is the first active English Football League player to do so. I highly recommend reading his excellent piece in The Guardian.
Last week, we were at the National Suicide Prevention Alliance conference where it was confirmed that a new National Suicide Prevention Strategy will be published (likely in the summer). For the first time gambling will feature as a key cause and risk factor for suicide, which will have huge implications for suicide prevention actions at local and national levels
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID – the body that replaced Public Health England) has confirmed that there are up to 500 suicides linked to gambling in England every year. Despite stating that “one suicide is too many”, industry lobbyists have shamefully continued to try to challenge the scale of suicide with all sorts of bogus and unevidenced claims. But now, serious and independent analysts have shown that gambling kills hundreds of people every year in the UK and destroys the lives of millions.
Many of you will have seen Liz and I were awarded MBEs in the New Year Honours list “for services to charity and support for families bereaved by gambling-related suicides”.
We see this as an acknowledgement by the government of the scale of the damage done by gambling, the suffering of the ones we have lost, and of families terribly harmed. It also recognises the many people working on gambling reform for so long. We believe that the awards will add weight to everyone’s efforts in continuing to push for reform to save lives and reduce the damage that gambling companies are able to inflict.
We may be the names on the awards but we know that the honour is shared by so many amazing people, including all the GwL families who survive day by day, week by week, and year by year.
Thanks to the hundreds of people who have been in touch. This clip from BBC Breakfast captures just a little of what we wanted to say to everyone.
BBC Breakfast – January 31, 2022
All for now and, as ever, thank you for your support.
Charles Ritchie Co-chair of Trustees, Gambling with Lives
