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Sam Wolfson Opinion There is not a lot of subtlety in the games they design for fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs). In one, Goddess of the Amazon, badly rendered illustrations of big-breasted women in leather underwear point you towards slot machines – you literally have to tap on their crotch...
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Editorial – Opinion The fine of £6.2m levied on the bookmakers William Hill today by the Gambling Commission represents a small victory in the constant struggle against the abuses of a system that lends itself to exploitation. In this case, the firm was found to have been astonishingly trusting about where...
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Alex Hern Opinion In a tale of gambling addiction posted to Reddit shortly before Christmas, the numbers were as shocking as they were unsurprising. First the anonymous addict frittered away $200 (£149), in November 2016. Then $700 more, later that month. Then $300, $400, $1,500 … eventually, by December 2017, a credit...
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Editorial | Opinion The worlds of late childhood and early adolescence are absorbing, often overwhelming, and at best partially accessible to the adults orbiting them. So it is shocking, but not perhaps surprising, to discover that around 25,000 11- to 16-year-olds are problem gamblers, according to new research. Another 36,000...
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Nils Pratley on finance | Business Ladbrokes Coral’s bosses will try to sound cheerful about the prospect of being taken over by GVC Holdings, the company behind Sportingbet and Foxy Bingo. But, on the long view, this deal would be a corporate humiliation. Ladbrokes is one of the oldest names in...
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Dawn Foster | Opinion When I first moved to the capital in 2010, I worked in Newham, in east London. It looked similar to the places I’d grown up and where I lived while at university, but for one difference: the number of betting shops seemed obscene. I’d pop...
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Adam Bradford | Opinion On Tuesday, the long-awaited report into the gambling machines known as fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and social responsibility was released by the government. In 2014, my father David, an accountant, was sent to prison for fraud. He had stolen £50,000 from his employers to fund his gambling addiction....
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Greg Wood | Sport betting When the department for digital, culture, media and sport finally announced a range of options for the new maximum stake in fixed odds betting terminals on Tuesday, the most interesting alternative was arguably the one that wasn’t there. The stake limit could be halved to £50, cut...
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Editorial | Opinion The record fine levied on 888, an online gambling company, today, is a sign that Britain has a gambling problem. A technical failure meant that 7,000 customers who had chosen to bar themselves from the firm’s betting terminals were still able to gamble. The public is starting...
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Victoria Coren Mitchell | Opinion The government’s failure to clamp down on fixed-odds betting terminals must be down to stupidity or corruption and I’m not sure which of those I hope it is. Which is better? Idiots or crooks? It would make a good parlour game. It’s possible that I’ve spent...
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Editorial | Opinion The UK Treasury has cold feet about the department of culture, media and sport’s review of fixed-odds betting terminals, expected to recommend swingeing cuts to the maximum bet. The chancellor is said to be alarmed about losing a lucrative tax stream. Absurdly, FOBTs, which seduce gamblers to play...
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Greg Wood | Opinion There is an old gambling story about the late Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, and an irritating Texan oil magnate who tried to goad him into a high-stakes head-to-head in a casino. “I’m worth $60m,” the oil man boasted, at which point Packer is said to...
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AVMS Directive to exclude minors from gambling advertisements Nicola Caputo, Member of the European Parliament, talks to the EGBA about the need to strictly prohibit gambling advertising targeting minors to ensure consumers at large are better protected. European countries have shifted their views from viewing gambling as something to...
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To date, the Court has rendered thirty judgments concerning the application of the Union’s fundamental freedoms to gambling, eleven of which have been delivered since the last comprehensive overview of gambling- related case law in a previous edition of the EGBA News1 . The Court has since reaffirmed its...
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The Gambling Commission was set up under the Gambling Act 2005 to regulate commercial gambling in Great Britain. On 1 October 2013 we also took over the responsibilities of the National Lottery Commission to regulate the National Lottery under the National Lottery Act 1993. The past eleven years...
Sam Wolfson Opinion There is not a lot of subtlety in the games they design for fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs). In one, Goddess of the Amazon, badly rendered illustrations of big-breasted women in leather underwear point you towards slot machines – you literally have to tap on their crotch...
Editorial – Opinion The fine of £6.2m levied on the bookmakers William Hill today by the Gambling Commission represents a small victory in the constant struggle against the abuses of a system that lends itself to exploitation. In this case, the firm was found to have been astonishingly trusting about where...
Alex Hern Opinion In a tale of gambling addiction posted to Reddit shortly before Christmas, the numbers were as shocking as they were unsurprising. First the anonymous addict frittered away $200 (£149), in November 2016. Then $700 more, later that month. Then $300, $400, $1,500 … eventually, by December 2017, a credit...
Editorial | Opinion The worlds of late childhood and early adolescence are absorbing, often overwhelming, and at best partially accessible to the adults orbiting them. So it is shocking, but not perhaps surprising, to discover that around 25,000 11- to 16-year-olds are problem gamblers, according to new research. Another 36,000...
Nils Pratley on finance | Business Ladbrokes Coral’s bosses will try to sound cheerful about the prospect of being taken over by GVC Holdings, the company behind Sportingbet and Foxy Bingo. But, on the long view, this deal would be a corporate humiliation. Ladbrokes is one of the oldest names in...
Dawn Foster | Opinion When I first moved to the capital in 2010, I worked in Newham, in east London. It looked similar to the places I’d grown up and where I lived while at university, but for one difference: the number of betting shops seemed obscene. I’d pop...
Adam Bradford | Opinion On Tuesday, the long-awaited report into the gambling machines known as fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and social responsibility was released by the government. In 2014, my father David, an accountant, was sent to prison for fraud. He had stolen £50,000 from his employers to fund his gambling addiction....
Greg Wood | Sport betting When the department for digital, culture, media and sport finally announced a range of options for the new maximum stake in fixed odds betting terminals on Tuesday, the most interesting alternative was arguably the one that wasn’t there. The stake limit could be halved to £50, cut...
Editorial | Opinion The record fine levied on 888, an online gambling company, today, is a sign that Britain has a gambling problem. A technical failure meant that 7,000 customers who had chosen to bar themselves from the firm’s betting terminals were still able to gamble. The public is starting...
Victoria Coren Mitchell | Opinion The government’s failure to clamp down on fixed-odds betting terminals must be down to stupidity or corruption and I’m not sure which of those I hope it is. Which is better? Idiots or crooks? It would make a good parlour game. It’s possible that I’ve spent...
Editorial | Opinion The UK Treasury has cold feet about the department of culture, media and sport’s review of fixed-odds betting terminals, expected to recommend swingeing cuts to the maximum bet. The chancellor is said to be alarmed about losing a lucrative tax stream. Absurdly, FOBTs, which seduce gamblers to play...
Greg Wood | Opinion There is an old gambling story about the late Australian media tycoon Kerry Packer, and an irritating Texan oil magnate who tried to goad him into a high-stakes head-to-head in a casino. “I’m worth $60m,” the oil man boasted, at which point Packer is said to...
AVMS Directive to exclude minors from gambling advertisements Nicola Caputo, Member of the European Parliament, talks to the EGBA about the need to strictly prohibit gambling advertising targeting minors to ensure consumers at large are better protected. European countries have shifted their views from viewing gambling as something to...
To date, the Court has rendered thirty judgments concerning the application of the Union’s fundamental freedoms to gambling, eleven of which have been delivered since the last comprehensive overview of gambling- related case law in a previous edition of the EGBA News1 . The Court has since reaffirmed its...
The Gambling Commission was set up under the Gambling Act 2005 to regulate commercial gambling in Great Britain. On 1 October 2013 we also took over the responsibilities of the National Lottery Commission to regulate the National Lottery under the National Lottery Act 1993. The past eleven years...
