I run NHS gambling clinics. The white paper doesn’t go nearly far enough
When people come to our clinics they’re already on their knees and desperate for help. This gambling white paper will not do enough to stop the flow of patients brought to us because of products deliberately engineered to be highly addictive.
The evidence of harm is there and has been submitted, yet so much is again out for consultation or not covered at all. The government has enough to act now and the delays mean the industry will carry on making huge profits while people are suffering and dying.
Gambling companies will continue to expose children and those harmed to advertising, and the practice of profiling and using marketing to access customers already experiencing harm. Alarmingly, the culture of VIP programmes targeting offers to the biggest loss-making customers looks set to continue.
Affordability checks will only kick in if someone loses £1,000 in 24 hours and are still being consulted on. Given that the average household’s disposable income is £500 a month, we need much lower levels to find people who are gambling beyond their means.
Our patients enter gambling mostly through sports and bingo and are then cross-sold addictive online casino games on their phones. This has not been stopped. There is a good reason many countries have already outlawed slot-style phone games.
The biggest health problem is coming from smartphone games that allow people to carry Las Vegas in their pocket. The risks are very different to someone playing the national lottery or playing bingo, and there is little in the white paper addressing this with any urgency.
We want to see stake limits of £2 a spin on online slots for everyone, and significantly slower speed of play. This would lead to a meaningful reduction in harm, but many of our
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