17 June 2020

The All Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Related Harm has called for a £2 stake limit online, a ban on all gambling advertising, a ban on VIP schemes and a complete overhaul of gambling regulation in the UK.

Its final report, which it put together using evidence from CNWL’s National Problem Gambling Clinic, sets out more than 30 recommendations.

The APPG’s inquiry, which began in March 2019, was held over 10 public evidence sessions, closed sessions, submissions from a wide range of stakeholders and meetings with the Gambling Commission and Gambling Ministers.

In an article in the British Medical Journal, Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones OBE, Director of the National Gambling Clinic, said that: “pathological gambling is a serious public health problem. Around half a million people are pathological gamblers but an estimated two million are at risk of developing the illness, defined as repeated gambling that causes significant negative financial, social, and personal consequences. As with other addictions, genetic vulnerability interacts with environmental factors and people whose parents gambled when they were young are at higher risk of becoming pathological gamblers.”