Gambling - Government's Response to the consultation on proposals for changes to Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility Measures.

As has been widely reported this morning the Government has published their response to their October 2017 consultation  on gaming machines and social responsibility measures.

The headline proposal, which will need further legislation for implementation, is the reduction of the maximum stake on B2 gaming  machines (commonly known as FOBT’S) from £100 to £2 with stakes and prizes being frozen across many other forms of gaming despite industry representations calling for rises in several categorises and for a rise in the automatic entitlement afforded under an Licensed Premises Notification. (Pub type gaming machines).

It is being stated that the reduction in B2 stakes will have an annual cost to business of £540 million, estimate the Government.  Industry has warned that this decision may lead to large scale redundancies, a significant reduction in tax yield to the government from this sector is also expected. 

The Government’s stated aim of this policy is reducing harm for those most vulnerable by reducing the ability to suffer high session losses, while also targeting the greatest proportion of problem gamblers, and mitigating risk for the most vulnerable players for whom even moderate losses might be harmful.

Some members of the industry have warned that this issue may simply manifest in another form of gambling and that, as an industry, the issue of problem gamblers must still be addressed. 

As well as gaming machines the consultation also looked at a range of other issues including:

• Online Gambling and
• Advertising

The key findings in relation to online gambling were stated as follows:

• We were clear at consultation stage that more needed to be done to protect consumers who gamble online.
• All online gambling is account-based and therefore operators know who their customers are and their patterns of play. We expect operators to act now and trial a range of measures to strengthen the existing protections in place.
• If operators fail to demonstrate sufficient progress then the Government and the Commission has powers to introduce additional controls or restrictions on the online sector.
• The Minister for Sport and Civil Society will co-chair a roundtable with Margot James, Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, to bring together stakeholders from the gambling and technology sectors and move towards a wider roll-out of best practice in using technology to improve player protections.
• The Gambling Commission has now set out a clear plan of action to strengthen player protections online: specifically around age verification, improving terms and conditions, identifying risks to players earlier and on customer interaction policies.

A link to the full response can be found here and the government’s impact assessment can be found here.