Study calls for mandatory levy to combat gambling harm and overhaul of laws

The UK's gambling laws require a radical overhaul including a mandatory rather than voluntary levy on operators to pay for prevention of gambling harm and to fund treatment, according to a new paper published in the British Medical Journal.

The authors say the harm caused by gambling had been "vastly underestimated" and call for the transfer of responsibility for gambling from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Figures quoted in the report said that approximately 0.7 per cent of adults – around 340,000 people – in Britain are classed as problem gamblers and a further 1.1 per cent or 550,000 people were at "moderate risk" of gambling-related harm.

The government has so far resisted calls for the voluntary levy of 0.1 per cent of gross gambling yield, which operators are supposed to pay to help tackle gamblng-related harm, to be made compulsory.

However, the academics on the paper – from England, Scotland, Wales and Australia – argued there was no government-owned strategy for preventing gambling harm and claimed there was a critical need to increase the level of funding available for prevention if harms were to be reduced.

Co-author Dr Heather Wardle, gambling behaviour expert from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Gambling harms have been vastly underestimated. It is placing major burdens on resources, relationships and health.

"The time now is for action to reduce harms which is going to require a much more significant level of funding than is currently available. We believe that a compulsory levy on industry is the only way to achieve this."

Both the Remote Gambling Association and the Association of British Bookmakers have for some time called for a mandatory levy on the gambling industry to support research, education and treatment.

The RGA said: "Our members are contributing more than is required under the current voluntary levy and we support a mandatory levy on the gambling industry to increase funding for research, education and treatment."

Labour deputy leader and shadow culture secretary Tom Watson welcomed the call for a mandatory levy, adding: "The government must stop dragging its feet."

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