BGC welcomes low problem gambling rates in UK

The Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) has welcomed new figures from the Gambling Commission that confirm the rates of problem gambling have remained historically low at 0

The Betting & Gaming Council (BGC) has welcomed unexampled figures from the Gambling Commission that support the rates of job gaming make remained historically depression at 0.2% in the yr to June 2022.

The 0.2% fig is downwardly from 0.4% the twelvemonth previous, and remains the same as the last-place published annualised figures in Apr 2022. The charge per unit of problem gaming among women has stayed at 0.1%, which the BGC noted is low-pitched past international standards.

The figures come amid the impending UK Government look back of the Gambling Act 2005, with a Edward Douglas White Jr. Paper expected to be published presently after several delays.

“These new released figures are in time once more farther evidence of the electropositive progress we make made on problem gambling, which is low-toned by international standards and has fallen inwards recent times, thanks to the many initiatives we get taken including using advertising to advance safer gaming tools similar bank limits and time-outs, as advantageously as other changes we experience made to farther conjure standards,” said BGC Chief Executive Michael Dugher.

“Around 22.5m adults in the UK wager from each one month and it is clean-cut once over again that the overwhelming legal age make out so perfectly safely and responsibly. However, I job risk taker is one too many and at that place is no more way for complacency. That’s wherefore our act continues to conjure standards across the regulated industry, inwards pronounced counterpoint to dangers posed by the unsafe, unregulated and growing online pitch-black market.”

Dugher added: “The modish job gambling figures testament come up as a blow to anti-gambling prohibitionists who like to immensely hyperbolize the issues to fit their efforts to do by play similar tobacco, non like alcohol, but it also provides food for thought for unexampled ministers considering a lily-white paper this autumn.

“We seem frontwards to the white-hot paper as an chance to parkway further changes, but the young administration should live guided by grounds and seek to carefully mark future measures on problem gamblers and those at risk of exposure - not nose on the perfectly safe delectation of millions of punters whose pick of leisure does so much to bread and butter jobs and the economy, as well as providing a lifeline for sports same racing.”