Member's statement: Gambling: Online Levy
Member's statement by Mr Timothy Gaston on .
- MLA
- Mr Timothy Gaston
- Party at the time
- Traditional Unionist Voice
- Date
- 20 January 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Gambling: Online Levy
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4744194
Read the official Assembly record
Text
The Northern Ireland Executive's 2016 assessment of problem gambling demonstrated that we suffer from a significantly higher problem gambling prevalence than the rest of the UK: 2·3% compared with 0·5% for England. To put it another way, our gambling harm rates were five times higher than those of England. We have to assume that the situation has since deteriorated here, as it has in England. At that time, as now, the UK Minister had a regulation-making power under the Gambling Act 2005 to charge a gambling levy, requiring the industry to make a contribution to address the socially destructive effects of gambling. He used the threat of its deployment to extract a voluntary contribution from the industry. We eventually caught up, making a similar provision through section 15 of the Betting, Gaming, Lotteries and Amusements (Amendment) Act (Northern Ireland) 2022. Unlike the GB levy, however, our levy appears to apply only to terrestrial gambling. If I am right about that limitation, it constitutes a major difficulty, because the problem prevalence figures associated with online gambling are significantly higher than those pertaining to terrestrial gambling, and the gross gambling yield figures demonstrate that more than half of the gross gambling yield comes from online gambling. Last year, the Government determined that it was time to use their regulation-making powers, and, on 12 December, the Gambling Levy Regulations 2025 were laid before Parliament. The regulations apply to terrestrial and remote gambling, placing a significantly higher levy on the latter. It is estimated that, operating from the coming financial year onwards, they will raise between £90 million and £100 million annually, an increase of £40 million on the voluntary contributions. I do not believe that the regulation-making powers in our 2022 Act have yet been deployed. Even when they are, it seems doubtful that they will engage remote gambling. If my assessment is correct, two things are urgently required. First, we must use the regulation-making powers in the 2022 Act from 1 April, so that people experiencing terrestrial gambling harm in Northern Ireland are not disadvantaged compared with those in GB. Secondly, we must introduce legislation applying the levy to online gambling for the same purpose. If we cannot do the latter, we should ask the UK Government urgently to make the relevant legislative changes to the regulation-making power in the 2005 Act, so that the levy applies to Northern Ireland in relation to online gambling.
403 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.97).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.01 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.02 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.97 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.93 |
| Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty | 0.03 |
| Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues | 0.02 |
| Disability (including neurodivergence and mental health), disabled people and disability or sickness benefits | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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