UK Gambling Reform: Tackling Addiction, Advertising, and the Black Market Artwork

The Bench Report

🇬🇧 Making UK politics accessible & accountable
🗣️Debates and briefings direct from Parliament
📝 Source: Hansard
🤖 AI Pod - subscribe on all platforms 🎧

Discover the issues your MP's are talking about. Local, national or international affairs, from AI regulation to climate finance to bin collection in Birmingham...we give you the crucial context you need.

Listener suggestions are vital to our mission - making politics more accessible and accountable. So please contact producer Tom (me) and he'll grab another coffee and start scanning those pages of Hansard.

Stay Informed: Get up-to-date on the latest parliamentary debates and policy decisions, many of which can be overshadowed by the headlines.
Accessible Politics: We break down complex political jargon into clear, understandable audio summaries.
Accountability: Understand how your government is working and hold them accountable.
Targeted Content: Search our episode library for topics that matter to you, personally or professionally.

Our Sources:

No outside chatter. We rely only on the official record of Parliamentary debates: Hansard.parliament.uk
Reports from Parliamentary Committees that consider and scrutise government work: committees.parliament.uk
Upcoming Parliamentary bills: bills.parliament.uk
The comprehensive resources of the House of Commons Library: commonslibrary.parliament.uk

Legal:

Contains Parliamentary information repurposed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0. parliament.uk/site-information/copyright-parliament

Email:

thebenchreportuk@gmail.com

Substack

Subscribe to our blog for in-depth analysis of debates, past and present.

thebenchreport.substack.com

Extended episodes:

We try to keep episodes short and concise, but if you would like a more detailed analysis of a particular topic, please get in touch!

About Me:

I'm Tom, producer of 'The Bench Report'. Yorkshireman, ex-primary school teacher, now working in the world of education technology. Dad of two, elite village cricketer, knackered footballer. Fascinated by UK and US politics and the world my kids will be taking over.

All Episodes

The Bench Report

UK Gambling Reform: Tackling Addiction, Advertising, and the Black Market

January 19, 2026 • The Bench Report • Season 5 • Episode 13

0:00 | 4:48

Send us a topic important to you.

There is a pressing need for reform in UK gambling regulation, highlighting that current rules fail to protect people, particularly young men and those in deprived communities. Evidence shows that 60% of the industry’s profits come from just 5% of customers who are problem or at-risk gamblers. Harms include hundreds of suicides annually and significant costs to the public purse. Key themes include the £2 billion spent yearly on pervasive digital advertising, the push for a statutory gambling ombudsman, and the challenge of new taxes potentially driving consumers toward dangerous, unregulated black market sites.

Key Takeaways

Current regulation is insufficient to protect children and young people, with the proportion of youth experiencing significant harms doubling between 2023 and 2024.
Gambling addiction is linked to serious harms including debt, poor physical and mental health, and significant public costs estimated at £3,700 per problem gambler per year.
Stricter advertising limits are being pursued, as research shows 96% of young people (aged 11-24) saw gambling marketing messages in the month before one study.
The government has increased remote gaming duty and introduced a statutory levy, which has raised nearly £120 million since April, with 50% allocated to NHS England and equivalents for treatment.
There is widespread cross-party agreement on the urgent need to establish a statutory independent gambling ombudsman to handle disputes and oversight.
A major concern is that aggressive regulation and taxation may push users into the unregulated black market, where consumer protections like affordability checks and self-exclusion are non-existent.

Source: Gambling: Regulatory Reform
Volume 776: debated on Tuesday 2 December 2025

Follow and subscribe to 'The Bench Report' on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes daily: thebenchreport.co.uk

Subscribe to our Substack

Shape our next episode! Get in touch with an issue important to you - Producer Tom will grab another coffee and start the research!

Email us: thebenchreportuk@gmail.com

Support us for bonus and extended episodes + more.

No outside chatter: source material only taken from Hansard and the Parliament UK website.

Contains Parliamentary information repurposed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0....

Ivan 0:04

Hello and welcome again to the Bench Report, where we discuss recent debates from the benches of the UK Parliament. A new topic every episode. You're listening to Amy and Ivan. We're jumping straight into what is, well, perhaps one of the most high-stakes debates right now. The urgent need for reform in gambling regulation.

Amy 0:23

It is. And the government is attempting a uh a near-impossible regulatory challenge here.

Ivan 0:29

How so?

Amy 0:30

Well, they're trying to balance the immense social cost of fiction, the very real human harm against the industry's economic impact.

Ivan 0:38

Oh, while worrying about driving people towards the black market.

Amy 0:41

Exactly. That completely unprotected, unregulated black market, it's a constant threat.

Ivan 0:45

Let's start with that human toll then. The numbers are just well, they're staggering. We're talking about 1.4 million people in Britain with a gambling problem.

Amy 0:53

And it's not evenly spread. We see the highest rates among young men, specifically in that, you know, 25 to 34 age group.

Ivan 1:00

And it's heavily concentrated in more deprived communities, isn't it?

Amy 1:03

It is. And what's really critical to understand is the industry's profit structure. A key piece of data came out.

Ivan 1:09

The 605 split.

Amy 1:10

That's it. 60% of the entire industry's profit comes from just 5% of its customers.

Ivan 1:16

So its success is structurally dependent on people who are addicted or at severe risk.

Amy 1:20

Precisely. And the cost of that dependency is devastating. We have evidence suggesting hundreds of gambling-related suicides every year.

Ivan 1:29

Which averages out to roughly one a day.

Amy 1:32

And when you connect that to the financial cost, it becomes even clearer. Problem gambling costs the public purse an additional 3,700 pounds per person per year.

Ivan 1:42

That's in healthcare, welfare, justice system costs.

Amy 1:45

All of it. Every taxpayer is footing a substantial bill for the fallout.

Ivan 1:49

And the industry is spending a huge amount to maintain this. 2 billion pounds a year on advertising.

Amy 1:54

And 80% of that is spent online.

Ivan 1:56

Which explains the youth exposure figures. 96% of 11 to 24 year olds saw gambling marketing messages recently. Just incredible.

Amy 2:04

It is. And this is why critics argue the UK's um self-regulatory model has failed. If you look at our European neighbors, like Italy or Spain. Italy, Spain, they've implemented strong restrictions, even outright bans on advertising. They see it as a public health issue.

Ivan 2:19

So what are the immediate policy demands being discussed? Two things keep coming up.

Amy 2:24

The first is the long-delayed creation of a statutory independent gambling ombudsman.

Ivan 2:28

Which would be a dedicated independent body to handle customer complaints outside the courts.

Amy 2:33

And the second is about strengthening local authority licensing powers, giving counsels more say and stopping more betting shops opening up.

Ivan 2:42

Now let's pivot to the money. The government just hit the industry with a massive tax hike.

Amy 2:46

A huge hike. They've increased the remote gaming duty, that's the tax on online betting, from 21% up to 40%.

Ivan 2:53

And they also brought in the new statutory levy.

Amy 2:56

Yes, a compulsory tax on the industry, which has already raised nearly $120 million for treatment and research.

Ivan 3:02

But this is the core conflict again. The risk that all this tax and regulation just pushes people into that unregulated black market.

Amy 3:09

It's the industry's main argument against reform. If consumers move there, they lose all protections. No GAMSTOP, no age verification, no affordability checks at all.

Ivan 3:21

So is the government doing anything to counter that?

Amy 3:24

They are. They've allocated 26 million pounds to the gambling commission specifically to tackle illegal operators.

Ivan 3:30

And what about the money from that new levy?

Amy 3:33

Well, this is what's truly groundbreaking. 50% of it is going directly into NHS treatment pathways.

Ivan 3:39

So it's formally being treated as a public health issue?

Amy 3:42

For the first time, yes. Moving it out of the purely commercial space. Which leaves us with a final thought. Given that the legal industry makes 60% of its profit from its most vulnerable 5% of customers, how can that new tax revenue be used to actually break that harmful cycle of dependency?

Ivan 3:59

As always, find us on social media at bench report UK. Get in touch with any topic important to you. Remember, politics is everyone's business. Take care.