United Kingdom

A new regulatory system meant to allow staff at betting shops to identify and bar problem gamblers has been criticised as ineffectual by addicts and campaigners. From this week bookmakers will have to conduct local area risk assessments to explain how they are going to mitigate crime and the...

In previous GBGC newsletters I have highlighted that the negative publicity attached to problem gambling is likely to cause a decline in gambling overall. The Drink Aware campaign on the misuse of alcohol, along with negative publicity on binge drinking, has caused a decline in alcohol sales of 16%...

The bookmaker Paddy Power is targeting minority ethnic communities with controversial fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), according to a new analysis. The study, which uses Gambling Commission data, reveals that 61% of Paddy Power’s 349 betting shops are located in areas with above average levels of non-UK born population. The...

When Paddy Power launched a new advertising campaign with the tagline “You’re Welcome!” last year, its chief marketing officer told a trade magazine that “the Paddy Power brand has always been about two things – being as generous as we can with our customers, and behaving in a mischievous...

Bookmaker Paddy Power encouraged a problem gambler to keep betting until he lost five jobs, his home and access to his children, according to a report by the Gambling Commission. The company also failed to perform sufficient checks to ensure customers were not using its betting machines to launder the...

Bookmaker William Hill has announced a drop in operating profit of 22% for 2015, blaming gambling taxes imposed on its UK online and retail businesses. The company reported operating profits of £291.4m for last year, down from £372.2m in 2014. It said additional gambling duties of £87m resulted in...

The way gambling operators treat the risk of their services being used for money laundering will come into sharper focus during 2016. Reforms to anti-money laundering (AML) rules have already been finalised at EU level and gambling operators operating in the British market should be preparing themselves for the...

Hundreds of suspected money laundering operations have been reported at betting shops as criminals plough drug money in to gambling machines. The Gambling Commission has revealed that over the past year, 633 reports were filed to it and the National Crime Agency by bookmakers where operators suspect the proceeds...

The chips are being counted, the roulette wheels prepared, the gaming machines readied. From next week, the doors of the UK’s newest and shiniest casino will be thrown open, giving up to 2,000 people at any one time the chance to try their luck on the turn of a...

A large Las Vegas-style casino opened near Birmingham last month, but what happened to Labour’s plans to create a new generation of gambling venues across the UK? It was billed as a massive expansion of Britain’s casino industry by the Blair government, but soon hit the buffers. Plans for...

As G Force burst through to win the prestigious Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock, I began celebrating my biggest priced winner of the flat season, having backed him at odds of 25-1. But my joy at such a profitable day’s gambling was soon tempered by the realisation that yet...

It took Tony Franklin just 59 minutes to squander £3,500 on high-speed, high-stakes gambling machines in his local Coral bookmakers. Losing the money was easy. Thirteen days before Christmas, he walked up to the counter, swiped his debit card and spent £500 picking the wrong numbers on electronic roulette....

More than a third of people playing high-speed, high-stakes betting machines experience problems with their gambling, according to industry-funded research released on Wednesday. The study involving 4,000 gamblers, which was commissioned by the Responsible Gambling Trust, revealed alarmingly high levels of problem gambling with high-stakes. FOBTs have been dubbed...

Professional Players’ Federation study shows 6.1 per cent of professional sportsmen have gambling problems Twice as many again ‘at risk’ according to new research Gambling addiction linked to poor on-field displays and match-fixing risk Study interviewed almost 350 players across football and cricket  Hundreds of professional footballers and cricketers...

Bet365, the Stoke-based bookmaker whose adverts are fronted by the actor Ray Winstone, has grown into one of the world’s largest online gambling businesses, helped by Chinese punters, who risk prison terms by betting via the group’s website. The company – which is also known in Britain for funding...