Government claims lack of UKGC intervention on PHE report despite FOI evidence
Gambling Minister Damian Collins notes no formal advice provided by regulator despite FOI finding UKGC said PHE report suffered from “lack of data and underestimated costs”
The UK government has appeared to have muddied the waters regarding the UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) stance on the Delphi study used by Public Health England (PHE).
Responding to a written question from Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen, the minister responsible for gambling, Damian Collins, said the UKGC had not given the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) any evidence on the report.
Collins said: “DCMS officials have regular discussions with the Gambling Commission on a range of issues relating to gambling regulation and the evidence on gambling.
“The Commission has given the [DCMS] no formal advice or notification relating to the cost estimates in Public Health England’s evidence review on gambling-related harm,” he added.
However, following a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Regulus Partners’ Dan Waugh, it was revealed the UKGC did in fact hold reservations over the PHE report.
In May 2018, the DCMS announced PHE would conduct an “evidence-based review” of the health aspects of gambling-related harm to “inform action on prevention and treatment”.
This report was subsequently published in September 2021 and claimed the total cost of gambling-related harm to the UK economy at the time sat at £1.27bn.
The UKGC said: “Given the (mostly acknowledged) limitations, it’s surprising that the £1.27bn cost of the gambling industry has been promoted by PHE as one of the main findings from the entire review.
“However, the lack of data and underestimated costs means that the estimated costs in this review are significantly below even the tax receipts from the gambling sector in 2017, which were estimated to be £2.7bn.
“The report succeeds in highlighting that there are costs to gambling, but I don’t believe that even PHE have confidence that £1.27bn is an accurate estimate of those costs.”
Elsewhere, the report also leaned heavily on the study, estimating there to be 409 suicides relating to gambling harm per year in the UK.
This figure was extrapolated from a study of pathological gamblers in Sweden, with that data used to assess the likelihood of suicide among a population of problem gamblers in the UK, which has since been deemed insufficient.
The study has also come under fire by many within the sector for recommending measures that would see the industry dramatically curtailed, including a ban on all forms of gambling-related advertising such as sponsorship, an outright ban on in-play betting on sport as well as a ban on spread betting on sports events.