INDUSTRY QUESTIONS EVIDENCE BEHIND LORDS’ CALL FOR GAMBLING ADVERTISING BAN

Public health campaigners have long called for tighter restrictions on gambling advertising. On 17 September, a follow-up report from the House of Lords Liaison Committee called on the UK government to ban gambling advertising “as soon as practicable”.

The committee also urged ministers to reconsider the policy of growing the licensed gambling sector and return to the position that existed before the 2005 Gambling Act, when gambling was regarded as an activity to be tolerated rather than actively promoted.

The report argues that there is “no evidence for the safety of gambling advertising”.

Industry representatives and other stakeholders have questioned that conclusion, pointing to differences in the data used by the committee, the timing of its assessment of recent voluntary measures and the evidence considered on the illegal gambling market.

A disputed measure of harm

One of the report’s central figures is an estimate that between 1 million and 1.5 million adults in Great Britain gamble at a level that may be considered problem gambling.

That estimate is based on the Gambling Commission’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), which recorded 2.4% of adults scoring eight or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index.

The report also acknowledges a substantially lower figure from the NHS Health Survey for England, which recorded a rate of 0.7% in 2024, equivalent to around 350,000 people.

Questions have been raised about why the GSGB produces higher rates than other official sources dating back almost two decades, including NHS surveys and an earlier Gambling Commission telephone survey.

One possible explanation raised by researchers is topic salience — the possibility that people with a particular interest in gambling may be more likely to participate in a survey specifically about gambling.

The GSGB also recorded a response rate of around 18%-19%, below its 22% target.

Academic research cited in the debate has raised questions about whether topic salience could have affected the results. Those concerns became public following a freedom of information request.

The Gambling Commission, however, continues to support the survey methodology, saying it was “designed by experts, reviewed by experts and approved by experts”. It has also argued that respondents may provide more candid answers when completing a survey without an interviewer present.

The Lords report cites academic research in its discussion of the methodology. A 2024 review for the Gambling Commission nevertheless advised caution over the possibility of overstatement.

The committee acknowledges the disagreement before suggesting that some earlier surveys may themselves have underestimated the prevalence of gambling-related harm.

The result is an unresolved debate over which set of data provides the most reliable measure of gambling harm.

Too soon to judge?

Questions have also been raised about the timing of the committee’s assessment of recent advertising restrictions.

The report concludes that voluntary measures “have not gone far enough”. However, one of the most significant changes — the removal of gambling sponsors from the front of Premier League shirts — only came into effect in August.

The committee heard oral evidence in June, before the new restriction had been implemented. It nevertheless concluded that it was “not confident” in the measure.

The report refers to an academic estimate that the change could reduce visible gambling marketing by around 9%. Industry representatives have argued that even a reduction of that scale could still be meaningful.

The committee also points to changes in football sponsorship arrangements as evidence that gambling promotion may be moving to other forms of exposure rather than disappearing.

Other recent measures, including a wagering cap introduced in January and new opt-in requirements for direct marketing, are also considered insufficient. The report recommends stronger restrictions despite the limited period available to assess their effects.

The black market question

The potential impact of an advertising ban on illegal gambling is perhaps the most contested issue.

Industry representatives have argued that removing advertising from licensed operators could make it more difficult for consumers to distinguish regulated businesses from unlicensed alternatives, while potentially giving illegal operators greater access to consumers.

The Lords committee considers the evidence for this concern insufficient.

Among the evidence cited by the committee is research based on interviews with representatives of state monopoly gambling operators across several European jurisdictions.

The study found that those interviewed did not generally believe advertising restrictions had resulted in significant consumer migration towards illegal operators.

However, the study was not specifically designed to measure the size of illegal gambling markets. Researchers interviewed 11 people working in safer-gambling roles at ten state-owned operators in 2024, seven of them in Europe.

The distinction is relevant because the structure of a monopoly market differs significantly from that of a competitive licensing system.

The monopoly question

Finland provides an example of the difficulties involved in assessing channelisation and illegal-market activity.

Veikkaus, Finland’s state gambling operator, has argued for several years that its online monopoly should be replaced by a licensing system. The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority has estimated that around half of Finnish online gambling expenditure takes place outside the state monopoly.

Veikkaus has also questioned the effectiveness of maintaining a monopoly when a significant proportion of online gambling already takes place outside the regulated channel.

Finland is due to open its online gambling market to licensed competitors next July.

The Finnish example concerns market structure rather than advertising specifically, but it illustrates the difficulty of using monopoly markets as a direct comparison when assessing the possible effects of advertising restrictions in competitive markets.

What the evidence shows

There is disagreement over the scale and trajectory of the illegal gambling market in Great Britain.

Industry-funded research has projected that unlicensed operators will spend hundreds of millions of pounds on advertising to British consumers this year. The Gambling Commission, meanwhile, has said its own data do not show sustained growth in engagement with illegal gambling markets.

The disagreement therefore extends beyond whether an illegal market exists. It concerns the extent to which advertising restrictions could influence consumer behaviour and whether consumers would remain within the licensed market.

The Lords report argues that requiring definitive causal evidence of harm reflects a misunderstanding of social science. It also states that it does not doubt that licensed operators account for most gambling advertising.

At the same time, the report acknowledges that it did not receive clear evidence establishing the precise scale of potential consumer migration to illegal operators following an advertising ban.

The report also refers to modelling cited by campaign groups which estimates that a 10% reduction in gambling spending could add £1.25bn to the economy and support 22,000 jobs.

These competing assessments highlight the difficulty of predicting the consequences of a comprehensive advertising ban before it has been implemented.

Enforcement remains a key issue

Another question concerns how effectively restrictions could be enforced against unlicensed operators.

The Lords report places considerable emphasis on enforcement as a means of limiting the illegal market. Industry representatives have questioned how practical that approach would be, particularly where operators are based outside the UK.

Italy is frequently cited in this debate. The country introduced extensive restrictions on gambling advertising several years ago but continues to have a significant illegal gambling market.

The Dutch market has also been raised as a comparison, with concerns about the proportion of gambling activity taking place outside the licensed sector despite regulatory restrictions.

The experience of these markets does not provide a direct answer to what would happen in Great Britain, but it does underline the difficulty of separating advertising policy from wider questions of licensing, enforcement and consumer channelisation.

A limited inquiry

The scope of the Lords review is another element of the debate.

The committee held a single oral evidence session and invited written submissions from a selection of stakeholders. The inquiry included representatives with differing views on gambling regulation and advertising.

The committee has said that a broad range of arguments and evidence were considered in preparing the report.

The government now has two months to respond.

The debate is likely to continue around three central questions: how gambling harm should be measured, whether recent advertising restrictions have been given sufficient time to demonstrate their impact, and what effect a comprehensive ban could have on the relationship between the licensed and illegal gambling markets.

For policymakers, the challenge is to assess those questions against evidence that remains contested and, in several areas, is still developing.