A House of Lords committee in UK recommended to completely ban gambling advertising across the country. The stronger restrictions are needed to reduce gambling-related harm.
The cross-party committee has described the harm caused by gambling as a serious public health issue and cited estimates that between 1 and 1.5 million adults in the UK face gambling problems.
The review was initiated because not enough progress had been made concerning earlier recommendations and the platform of gambling advertising changed significantly since 2020, mentioned Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, who is the senior deputy speaker and the chair of Liaison Committee.
The committee stated that compared to other territories, Britain has become relatively isolated as other places have put far stricter regulations regarding gambling advertising.
The paper holds that the voluntary recommendations do not reduce significantly the exposure of sports to gambling advertisements. The report also raised the issue of whether banning sponsorships related to gambling from football shirts will lead to reduction of gambling ads; it mentioned the fact that sponsorships may be taken to use in other forms such as training kits.
The committee recommended prohibiting any advertisement related to gambling from sports teams uniforms and kits as well as placing such ads around sports venues.
Lord Foster of Bath mentioned in his comments as previously related to the committee that reduction of gambling participation can have multilateral effects on the economy, referring to the research work conducted by the Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research stating that a 10% decrease in gambling expenditures can lead to an increase in value-added GDP by £1.25 billion as well as creation of more than 22,000 jobs.
The committee emphasized that the Gambling Commission is the organization best suited for this purpose, additionally needing more funding and experts to ensure supervision of advertisement practices.
