Labour MP Calls For Sweeping Gambling Reforms Fit For The "Modern Internet Age"
Alex Ballinger was elected as Labour MP for Halesowen in the West Midlands last year (Alamy)
9 min read
Labour MP Alex Ballinger has said that the government move to introduce a statutory levy on gambling is a “drop in the ocean” to tackle the harms caused by betting firms to some of the most vulnerable people in society.
A former Royal Marine and aid worker, Ballinger told PoliticsHome that “people don't realise the scale of the problem of gambling harm in this country”, and warned that a Treasury consultation on the tax treatment of remote gambling could have “unintended consequences”.
According to the Gambling Commission, there are more than a million people across the country facing severe harms from gambling, including debt, mental health problems, unemployment, involvement in crime, and risk of suicide.
In response to mounting concerns from campaigners and charities, the government has introduced a statutory levy on gambling companies, expected to raise £100m a year for NHS-led treatment services. But Ballinger argues this does not go far enough.
“That's a positive move, but it's just a drop in the ocean,” he said.
“We're looking at ways that we can reduce that harm to people, and so that those particular types of gambling pay more for the costs that they're causing to the community. And the way we do that is through the taxation system.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is under pressure to find ways of delivering economic growth after the economy unexpectedly contracted by 0.1 per cent in May and the government rowed back on making wider cuts to the winter fuel allowance and disability benefits. The government faces making difficult trade-offs in this year's Autumn Budget, with tax rises looking increasingly likely.
A Social Market Foundation (SMF) report last year found that 74 per cent of people placed raising duty on gambling firms in their top three choices of tax rises that the government should prioritise.
“It's the most popular rise that could be proposed at the moment,” Ballinger said.
“It's an area that the public recognises is causing harm. They would be sympathetic towards making companies like that pay.”
Gambling companies will lobby the government to try and oppose these types of changes
Ahead of Reeves’ first Budget last year, the SMF estimated that doubling remote gaming duty (RGD) from 21 per cent to 42 per cent would raise up to £900m – but the proposal, supported by the Liberal Democrats, was not taken up by the government.
“The UK has one of the least regulated, one of the most open societies for gambling, and that, of course, has had big consequences,” Ballinger said, adding that he would like to see UK tax rates on gambling revenue rise to match European levels. Greece, for example, taxes gambling at 35 per cent, compared to the UK at just 21 per cent.
Ballinger, along with other members of the cross-party Gambling Related Harm All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), met with Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury James Murray last week. The Treasury is carrying out a consultation on whether to introduce a new, single remote gambling duty, which would involve harmonising General Betting Duty, Remote Gaming Duty and Pool Betting Duty.
Ballinger said that while simplifying the tax system is a “good thing”, online casinos and slots should keep paying a higher rate of tax than “your local bingo hall or bookmakers” – as online gambling companies are “engaged in the most harmful forms of gambling”.
Combining the duties, in Ballinger’s view, might have “unintended consequences” because it would create an even higher incentive for companies to steer people towards the more harmful forms of gambling.
The MP is also in favour of tightening regulations around the targeted advertising of gambling, particularly when it disproportionately affects vulnerable groups of people.
Ballinger has been acutely aware of the harms caused by gambling addiction since his time in the army.
“There's a huge number of serving military, soldiers and sailors, but also veterans who are into gambling,” he said.
“There’s something around the culture: higher risk taking, lots of time in between things where you’re sat around, and maybe as a young single guy who's recently joined, having a bit more disposable income and not really knowing what to do with it.”
Alex Ballinger (right) served with the Royal Marines from 2005 to 2013 (Alex Ballinger)
Veterans and serving soldiers are 10 times more likely to have a gambling addiction than a regular member of the public. Ballinger said the presence of “loads and loads” of gaming machines in army barracks “normalised” the practice for thousands of young men.
Ballinger believes gambling firms actively target young servicemen and women through aggressive advertising. “There's a lot of evidence that gambling adverts include younger people, influencers, sportsmen, sportswomen, that are particularly targeted at that sort of demographic.
“Lots of people who join the services do come from areas that are a bit more deprived, and those are exactly the same areas that are targeted by gambling companies. So it's all these things overlapping.”
He said responsibility lay partly with military leadership to address the problem by engaging with gambling charities and reducing the opportunities for gambling in army accommodation.
But the issue is not confined to the armed forces, and Ballinger is calling for wider government-led reform.
Shortly after he was elected last year, Ballinger met the family of a young man who had gotten into gambling when he was 17 on the machines at the chip shop where he worked. Despite getting his parents’ help to get himself blocked from all the bookmakers in his local area, he was bombarded with promotional emails from gambling companies and got hooked on online gambling.
“He got himself in a very difficult situation, and very, very sadly, he chose to end his own life,” Ballinger said, explaining that he had been personally moved by this story to advocate for gambling reform.
We need a new gambling act that is more relevant for the modern internet age
With gambling shifting into the digital arena over the past two decades, Ballinger is deeply worried about the “very highly addictive” nature of these games.
“The last time we had primary legislation on gambling was in 2005, when online gambling was very nascent,” he said.
“No one really projected the way it would grow into such a dominant part of the industry as it is at the moment. They're using algorithms to gamify them to make them even more addictive, you can use them 24/7.”
Ballinger was scathing about the gambling industry's advertising tactics, citing the example of there being 29,000 gambling adverts displayed in the opening weekend of the most recent Premier League season, widely watched by families and children.
“We shouldn't be having gambling adverts at a time when children are exposed to those gambling adverts, it's inappropriate,” the MP said.
“You are encouraging young people to think that gambling is cool and safe and normalised.”
Although gambling companies have agreed to remove their logos from the centre of Premier League shirts, Ballinger dismissed the move as a “very much a tokenistic response”: “They can still be all up and down the arms, all over the billboards, on the television.
“There needs to be a lot more regulation around when [gambling adverts] can be, on the audience they're targeted at, and the protection of young people in particular.”
Premier League clubs have voluntarily agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of their shirts by the end of the 2025-26 season (Alamy)
Ballinger is also concerned by the prevalence of betting shops and adult gaming centres – “basically 24/7 mini casinos” – in areas of deprivation, which he said currently represents a “big gap in the legislation”.
“Planning regulations on these types of buildings are very lax,” he said.
He pointed to the work being done by Brent Council in London, which was ranked fifth among local authorities with the highest number of betting shops per capita.
“They're concerned about the concentration of betting shops, adult gaming centres in areas of deprivation,” he said.
“You just need to walk around some of the left-behind towns in my part of the world to see it. We don't have all the answers now, but some of the suggestions that Brent Council is making around councils having more power around the placing of those betting and gaming shops seems appropriate.”
The gambling industry also has a presence in the very heart of UK politics, and Ballinger was critical of the perceived “revolving door” of Westminster figures and the gambling sector.
“Twenty years later, we've got a lot more evidence on the harms, on the direction of the industry, and we've got a lot more evidence on the way that gambling companies will lobby and work inside the government to try and oppose these types of changes, because it's very profitable for them to do so.”
Asked about former MPs with ties to the industry – including ex-Conservative MP Philip Davies, who bet on himself to lose his seat and is now chairman of Star Sports, and former Tory MP Laurence Robertson who earned around £24,000 a year from the Betting and Gaming Council while still an MP – Ballinger was unequivocal that it was “inappropriate”: “It's well known, well documented, the sort of damage there is caused by gambling across our society.”
The last time we had primary legislation on gambling was in 2005
He was equally critical of former MPs taking roles in the tobacco industry, referencing former Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt’s recent appointment to an advisory board at British American Tobacco. “I would never, never engage in any sort of work for a tobacco company,” he said. “My grandfather died of lung cancer. He was a heavy smoker. I know that the real damage tobacco causes to families, and anyone who had any sort of public-mindedness would steer very clear of those types of organisations.”
Having just reached his first anniversary of being in Parliament, Ballinger is eager for sweeping gambling reforms to come quickly before the next general election.
Asked what the Gambling Commission, the regulator of the gambling industry, needs to improve on, Ballinger said more needs to be done to give victims and families a voice.
He is hopeful that the APPG’s inquiry will lead to meaningful legislation in this Parliament: “A proposal on how the government could turn that into a new piece of primary legislation, a new gambling act that is more relevant for the modern internet age”.
“Ultimately, it has to be fewer people with mental health problems, fewer people getting into horrible debt, fewer people dying by suicide,” he continued.
“What the public would notice is that there would be fewer bloody gambling adverts everywhere. If we can keep them in a space that families are not in, that would be a success too.”
