National Audit Office calls for more stringent regulations online

The government and Gambling Commission need to do much more to ensure effective regulation that protects gamblers according to a report released on Friday by the National Audit Office.

In the last decade the real-term gross yield (bets placed less winnings paid out) for licensed gambling has increased by £4.1 billion (57 per cent), with the gross yield for operators in Britain standing at £11.3bn for 2018-19.

Online betting and technological advancements for smart phones meaning it has never been quicker and easier to place a bet.

But such ease of access means gamblers are increasingly at risk and the NAO report calls for more stringent regulation, stating it "lags behind" the industry.

Read the report in full here

While accepting the Commission has made some improvements, the report concludes: "There is much more it should do."

Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, added: "The risks to gamblers are changing as technologies develop.

“Yet the Gambling Commission is a small regulator in a huge and fast-evolving industry. While the Commission has made improvements, gambling regulation lags behind the industry. The Commission and government need to work together to ensure that regulation keeps pace with the risk to gamblers.”

An estimated 395,000 people are problem gamblers in Britain according to the Commission, of which 55,000 are aged 11-16, with 1.8 million people estimated as being at risk.

The report's findings were seized upon by Carolyn Harris, Labour MP for Swansea East and chair of the all party parliamentary group on gambling harm.

In a scathing statement on Twitter, Harris called for Commission chief executive Neil McArthur to step down, and for government to take the lead on protecting problem gamblers.

In response to the report, a Commission spokesperson said: "We welcome today’s NAO report and are pleased that it recognises our work in making gambling safer.

"We agree with the report’s assessment that we face the significant challenge of regulating a dynamic and developing industry. It also underlines the constraints that our current funding arrangements present and we are developing proposals to discuss this with DCMS.

"We have made progress in making gambling safer, but more needs to be done. In addition to a programme of tougher enforcement and compliance activity, in the last two years we have strengthened protections including online age and ID verification, customer interaction and most recently we banned gambling on credit cards.

"We must see a reduction in the number of people experiencing harm and we are currently pushing the industry to focus on poor VIP practices, advertising technology and game design."

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