Set to join the RGSB as a member with immediate effect, van der Gaag is to take on the new role to succeed Sir Christopher Kelly, whose own term as chair comes to an end in March of next year.

Kelly commented: “I am delighted to welcome Dr Anna van der Gaag as my successor. Anna’s strong background in research and regulation provides a solid foundation to provide authoritative advice on the next strategy and to achieve our aim – to reduce the impact of gambling-related harms, especially among the most vulnerable.”

An ex-chair of the Health and Care Professions Council, van der Gaag is also a non-executive director at Health Education England and the Kent Surrey and Sussex Academic Health Science Network.

Further experience comes in the form of a founding member of the Q Community, a quality improvement network led by the Health Foundation, whilst also being a visiting professor of Ethics and Regulation at the University of Surrey.

Commenting of the new role van der Gaag, awarded a CBE in 2015 for services to health and care, explained: “Gambling-related harms are increasingly recognised as a public health issue requiring robust collective action.

“I am thrilled by this opportunity to join a team with such a passionate commitment to understanding and reducing harms, and raising awareness of the personal and societal costs that can arise from gambling activities.”

Bill Moyes, Gambling Commission chair, added: “It is with pleasure that we announce Dr Anna van der Gaag as the new chair of RGSB. She brings with her a wealth of experience in health, social care and the prevention of harm that will be an asset in advising on how to implement the next National Strategy, which will launch in April 2019 and on which we will shortly be consulting.”

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Working with local licensing authorities and police forces to test compliance with laws in place, the current failure rate of 89 per cent is significantly higher than that of other age restricted products such as alcohol and tobacco, which sit at 15 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.

The commission details that clear signage should be on display indicating age restrictions, and that there is a clear expectation upon staff to stop children playing on such machines.

The UKGC does not regulate gaming machines in pubs, with the Category-C machines, which have a maximum stake of £1 and a maximum prize pay-out of £100, granted by local licensing authorities, who hold the responsibility of ensuring compliance in line with the law.

Helen Rhodes, programme director at the Gambling Commission, commented: “We are extremely concerned that pubs across England are failing to stop children playing gaming machines designed for adults.

“We urgently call on the pub sector to take action immediately to enforce the laws in place to protect children and young people.”

The letter in question can be found in full below.

Dear Trade Association

Age Verification on Category C (adult only) gaming machines in pubs

In June 2018 the Gambling Commission set out further commitments to protecting children and young people from the dangers of gambling, building on work already underway in this area.

The Commission asked its expert advisers, the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB), for specific advice on the critical theme of children, young people and gambling. Bringing together existing work and acting on the advice provided by the RGSB, the Commission’s strengthened focus seeks to ensure the right protections are in place, to reduce the risk of harm to children and young people.

The Commission called for all those responsible for safeguarding children, to work together with the Commission to address the wide range of issues identified in RGSB’s advice. Amongst the actions identified was the need to address access and exposure to gambling by children and young people.

The Commission has therefore been working in conjunction with licensing authorities across England for the last six months, to test the compliance of pubs with the requirement to prevent under 18s playing on Category C machines. These exercises were led by licensing authorities (and trading standards staff) or police officers, who had volunteered their resources to work with the Commission.

The interim results are sufficiently concerning that we consider it to be in the public interest to release them immediately. The current failure rate is 89% based on 61 tests. This compares to a pass rate of 70 – 85% for most age restricted products such as alcohol or tobacco. (Source: Serve Legal.)  

The pubs tested were a matter for the licensing authority to determine based on their local priorities. The failure rate did not vary significantly between licensing authorities nor between [large] pub companies and independents. The results were uniformly poor.

To summarise the legal position, at s46 of the Gambling Act 2005 (the Act)

(1)   A person commits an offence if he invites, causes or permits a child or young person to gamble.

At s284, a licensing authority may remove the exemption (to make gaming machines available on a licensed premises) if:

        ‘an offence under this Act has been committed on the premises’.

The Commission has published a Code of Practice[1] for gaming machines in clubs and premises with an alcohol licence under s24 of the Act. The Code makes it a condition of the permit that:

‘All gaming machines situated on the premises must be located in a place within the premises so that their use can be supervised, either by staff whose duties include such supervision (including bar or floor staff) or by other means.’

Section 3.1 of the code sets out good practice in relation to access to gambling by children and young people:

‘Permit holders should put into effect procedures intended to prevent underage gambling. This should include procedures for:

• Checking the age of those who appear underage
• Refusing entry to anyone unable to produce an acceptable form of identification.

Permit holders should take all reasonable steps to ensure that all relevant employees understand their responsibilities for preventing underage gambling.’

The Commission, the Local Government Association and the Welsh Local Government Association are very concerned about the findings and the clear risks that they indicate to children and young people’s access to gambling. Further tests will be undertaken over the coming months.

We urgently call the industry and their Trade Associations to take the results as a serious indication of the need to improve matters. We expect that the action taken will be reflected in significant improvements in future test results.

As a part of the Commission’s wider focus on children and young people, we will support licensing authorities in their further actions against operators who fail to meet the conditions of their permits, and will also not hesitate to amend the Code of Practice for gaming machines in clubs and pubs if that is proved necessary.         

Yours sincerely

Richard Watson, Executive Director Enforcement

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Announcing its support for new research, which is set to explore if certain gambling products and environments are more harmful than others, the UKGC is enhancing its strategies and commitments to preventing harm for customers.

Ben Haden, programme director at the Gambling Commission, said: “Our strategy sets out our commitment to preventing harm to consumers from the risks gambling can pose. Success of this relies on growing our evidence base, to better understand the types of gambling products and services that present more of a risk of harm to consumers than others.

“Gambling firms have an important role to play in achieving this, as they hold comprehensive data that is vital to this research. It goes beyond simply analysing the data which is already reported to us by operators, and we will be encouraging the industry to get involved.”

Commissioned by GambleAware, and supported by the UKGC and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB), information about consumer gambling activity is to be utilised as part of the extensive research project.

Operators are to be asked to provide certain data, so a more full understanding of how products, environments and characteristics vary, in addition to helping identify which are closely associated with harmful play.

The aim of this approach is to strategically request data from operators that can potentially be reused, where relevant, for further research projects.

A brief, produced by the RGSB, setting out the proposed approach is set, and once a research team is in place, operators will be contacted by the Commission to explain how they can get involved at an early stage.

Claire Wyllie, director of research commissioning at GambleAware, said: “GambleAware is pleased to be working with the Gambling Commission and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, on a project that will help us to better understand gambling behaviour across different products, and to know what characteristics are most strongly associated with harm, focusing on the online sector in the first phase and moving onto other sectors in subsequent phases.

“For the first time, we will be able to look comprehensively across the gambling industry, to understand where the risk of harm lies, and by making data available to researchers [the] industry can gain new insights to prevent harm, and to ensure customers gamble safely.”

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Playing Safe, the casino sector’s responsible gambling body, presented its annual report at a House of Commons reception last month, where it stressed that “the willingness of [casino] operators to collaborate and learn from each other is very encouraging”.

Such initiatives have become an intrinsic part of the industry, and even the most old-school of betting operators will concede that there presence is an ultimately positive one.

Dr Guy Bohane, an academic with a PhD in Business Ethics, heads up Playing Safe. CasinoBeats recently caught up with him to find out about some of the body’s recent projects:

“Concerns about the ‘normalisation’ of gambling for young people have been identified by the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board as a strategic priority for the industry and Playing Safe was commissioned by the National Casino Forum to conduct a pilot research project to assess young adults’ gambling behaviour and playing strategies in casinos.

“The objective was to consider ways of improving the support and guidance for younger players and to better inform casino staff about the issue,” said Bohane.

“Focus groups were held with younger gamblers and the insights into how to produce better, more targeted messaging for these customers will be shared amongst operators.

“Another project was developing a dedicated online learning package for casino managers when dealing with potentially vulnerable customers who might have a range of cognitive difficulties, such as autism and dementia, or a mental health condition.

“The programme has been developed to help managers develop their practical skills, making engagement and interaction with potentially vulnerable customers more effective.

“Playing Safe also carried an evaluation of casinos’ participation in the first ever industry-wide Responsible Gambling Week, visiting six casinos, interviewing staff and monitoring activity across all Genting casinos in the UK,” continued Bohane.

“We hope our recommendations will help inform the sector’s approach to this year’s Responsible Gambling Week, which is taking place in October.”

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Funded by all sectors of the gambling industry, GambleAware, who promote education, harm prevention and treatment services related to gambling addiction, was set a £10m target in 2016/17 by the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, who in turn are responsible for advising both the Gambling Commission and UK government.

Marc Etches, GambleAware chief executive, said: “It is imperative that all businesses deriving a profit from commercial gambling in Britain support GambleAware in the delivery of the National Responsible Gambling Strategy.

“This initiative by NCF’s members will ensure transparency in relation to the casino sector’s funding of research, education and treatment, and sets an important bench-mark for others”.

The National Casino Forum (NCF) is to change the terms of its membership, making it clear to operators that they will be expected to make the required donation of their GGY.

It will also be highlighted that donations to other charities will be in addition to GambleAware, and documented separately.  

Tracy Damestani, chief executive of the NCF, added: “This is an historic commitment by casino operators. They are guaranteeing that the casino sector will donate 0.1% of Gross Gambling Yield to GambleAware, in addition to making other charitable donations. They are underpinning this pledge by introducing a transparent new payment system.

“The casino sector has always supported fundraising for research, education and treatment, and casino operators are determined to go beyond both the letter and the spirit of the Act in their support for responsible and safer gambling.

“They want to ensure that research, education, prevention and treatment programmes are fully funded across the gambling industry”.

The charity has recently announced a record number of donations totalling £8m, however, that figure still falls 20% short of its annual target.

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