Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (): We are now one year on from
the publication of the landmark gambling white paper and the
Government continues to take important steps in implementing its
key policies and recommendations.
That white paper recognised the significant contribution racing
makes to not just British sporting culture, but to our wider
economy. It is second only to football in attendance figures and
it constitutes a major part of various different rural economies
across the country. According to a study, submitted by the
British Horseracing Authority, the racing industry has direct
revenues in excess of £1.47 billion and makes a total annual
contribution to the UK economy (including induced effects) of
£4.1 billion.
As the regulator for the sector, the Gambling Commission has a
pivotal role to play in the implementation of reforms. Today the
Gambling Commission published its decisions on four key measures
from the white paper: stronger age verification in premises,
improving customer choice on direct marketing, safer remote game
design and financial risk checks. I am pleased to say that its
plans for these measures remain entirely consistent with the
objectives of our white paper.
In its consultation response, the Gambling Commission set out its
plans to implement a proportionate new system of frictionless
financial risk checks. This system contains two different
financial risk checks. The first are frictionless, light touch
vulnerability checks that will use publicly available data and do
not require any information from punters.
The second are enhanced frictionless risk assessments. As set out
in its recent blog post on this issue, the consultation response
makes clear that these enhanced risk assessments will only be
introduced after a pilot period and at the point when we are
certain they will be frictionless, meaning customers will no
longer have to provide documents. The pilot will be used to test
the best data to use and how operators and credit reference
agencies will share this data. Credit reference agencies collect
a range of data that could be used in an assessment, for example
information on missed or late credit payments or how much credit
is available. Gambling operators will never have access to raw
account-level data, and so, for example, they would not be able
to look at customers' bank accounts and nor will the Government
or Gambling Commission. The pilot will also assess the impact
these risk assessments will have on the industry as well as
consumers.
While this pilot is underway, an interim code will deliver
progress on resolving the issue of existing ad hoc and onerous
document checks. The Betting and Gaming Council has announced
today its new industry code on consumer checks. For operators who
adopt this interim solution, these measures will bring
much-needed consistency across the regulated sector until the
frictionless financial risk assessments can be developed, tested
and fully implemented.
The interim code and the new system of frictionless checks are a
major step towards transforming the current system of ad hoc and
onerous document checks that are negatively impacting customers,
the betting industry and horseracing. We recognise that even when
this new system of frictionless check is in place these measures
are likely to have an impact on betting yield. The Government is
working with racing and refining estimates of this impact, and,
as committed to in the gambling white paper, we started a review
of the Horserace Betting Levy in May 2023 to ensure a suitable
return to the sport for the future. This review has been taking
into account the impact of the wider reforms in the white paper
on horseracing to ensure the proposed levy delivers an
appropriate level of funding for the sector. We recognise the
importance of the levy to the horseracing industry and we have
strongly encouraged racing and betting stakeholders to work
together to come to a consensus in the best interests of the
sport. We recognise that a huge amount of hard work has been
undertaken over the course of the last year, but we are
disappointed that this has not resulted in an agreement to date.
I and the Minister for Sport are undertaking an intense period of
engagement with all parties to resolve this issue, and we
continue to encourage all parties to engage and come to an
agreement voluntarily. As we have always said, if no agreement is
reached we will consider legislative options. We will update the
House on the progress on these talks on or before 22 May 2024.
