When will the government tackle Fixed Odds Betting Terminals?

NatCen's analysis of the 2015 Health Survey, published last week, showed the problem gambling rate at 430,000—up from 280,000 in 2012—with 2 million at risk of addiction. Both the Gambling Commission, conscious of implicating itself in this failure, and the bookmakers, described the rate as “static.” But such a dramatic increase in just three years should alarm us all, and the data are timely if they are to inform the government’s review into Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) due in October.

FOBTs, located in betting shops, permit bets of up to £100 every 20 seconds on casino games, the most popular being roulette. Last year the machines generated £1.8 billion, more than half of the profits made by betting shops.

While the Gambling Commission conceded that “more progress is needed to tackle problem gambling,” this falsely implied that some such progress has been made to date.

The Gambling Commission, a regulator, is to advise the government on the impending FOBT review. It should look closely at the results of last week’s survey, and note that the rate of problem gambling among FOBT users stands at 11.5 per cent compared to a rate of 1.4 per cent among all gamblers. It should also note that 43 per cent of FOBT users are either problem or at-risk gamblers, so it is simply not in the commercial interest of bookmakers to reduce harm when they derive so much revenue from customers experiencing it. Based on the British Gambling Prevalence Survey in 2010, Professor Jim Orford et al found that over 40 per cent of the time spent and money lost on FOBTs came from problem and at-risk gamblers.

The coalition government cut the funding for the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, and questions on gambling were subsequently incorporated into the Health Survey. But due to methodological differences, comparisons cannot be drawn between the two. So it is disappointing to see the regulator using data from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey to claim problem gambling rates are “static” when over three years, in only the time between the two Health Surveys have been published, it has increased by 150,000. Incidence of problem gambling—ascertaining how many new problem gamblers there are— is a much more useful metric than prevalence, particularly if questions are asked about the primary mode of gambling, and how much is lost on each product engaged with. The British Gambling Prevalence Survey should be reinstated and this should be included within its scope.

There also needs to be a better separation of products in the methodology. In the Health Survey, remote gambling is spilt into “Online Betting” and “Online Gaming.” This method of aggregating betting on racing, sports and other events into “online betting,” and aggregating casino games, slots, bingo and poker into “online gaming” distorts the results and makes FOBTs look less of a problem than they are. It would be useful to, for example, find out whether bingo in a bricks and mortar venue was less harmful than online bingo by having a direct comparison.

Although it can be calculated, there is no aggregation of problem gamblers and at-risk gamblers by activity, and the measure of participation in gambling only takes into account the past year, rather than the three years since the last survey.

Participation in different activities by frequency, which was available in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, has been omitted. Knowing the rates for the population as whole and for all gamblers is interesting but more is needed if the objective is to inform policy.

Until government is ready to get the evidence on the behaviour of very frequent gamblers, it will not understand. Gambling, as it is currently permitted, is not viable without profits from problem and at-risk gamblers. The government cannot claim that there is not enough evidence to do anything when it does not ensure the Gambling Commission research is conducted so it delivers relevant results.

GambleAware, an industry funded charity responsible for delivering research, education and treatment, is set a target by the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board to raise 0.1 per cent of profits from gambling. Last year, this would have raised £13.6 million, but it fell well short of that target, raising only £8 million. There simply isn’t enough help available at the moment.

Gambling-related harm is increasing. While the bookies pay lip service to providing support to problem gamblers, it is naïve to expect the industry to reduce gambling related harm off its own bat, and essential that the government announces a reduction in the maximum stake per spin on FOBTs from £100 to £2 when it responds in October.