Debate contribution: Gambling-related Harms: Public Health Approach

Debate contribution by Mr Robbie Butler on 28 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Robbie Butler

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

28 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Gambling-related Harms: Public Health Approach

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4764089

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Before I start my speech, I want to recognise the hard work of the Members who are part of the APG and are regular and faithful attendees. The work that has been completed there is exceptional. It has a devoted core of members, but I pay tribute to Philip in particular for expressing today some of his personal testimony of the impact that gambling can have on individuals and their families. I also want to read into the record our thanks to Peter and Sadie Keogh in particular. We have had numerous testimonies, to be fair, but, almost without fear of being contradicted, I think that Peter and Sadie have attended every APG meeting, and they have certainly attended all of our events. I want to speak about the availability and accessibility of gambling products. The rise of online gambling has given people 24-hour access to gambling products. The APG has heard from those involved in the treatment of gambling disorder, who noted that the greater the availability and accessibility of gambling and the more that it is advertised, the higher the consumption and the greater the harm. Whilst that sounds quite obvious, it is important —.

Absolutely.

The Member's points are really well made, but, in trying to understand the complexity of gambling, I have a personal fear that going for the easy-to-get pieces, such as the land-based gambling institutions, perhaps, and making it harder for them to provide a service, would drive more people towards under-regulated online provision. It is a good point, and legislation in all Houses is needed. We heard from the Royal Society for Public Health that people with online gambling problems are more likely to place bets between the hours of midnight and 4.00 am and that sleep deprivation makes people pursue bigger risks and give less consideration to negative consequences. That can have a cyclical effect: people at greatest risk of harm are more likely to stay up late, and, as a result, they are sleep-deprived and likely to gamble even more. Therefore, the APG has recommended that the Executive consider restricting access to remote gambling sites between the hours of 12.00 am and 5.00 am, which is in line with the land-based sector and with restrictions on the sale of alcohol. That goes back to my previous point: if we just restrict the land-based institutions, which can have eyes on people who want to gamble, we further expand the online sector, which is exploding in front of our eyes. We have also been told about so-called covert marketing whereby electronic and continuous forms of gambling — those are highly addictive, amongst the most harmful and are embedded in sports gambling — are cross-sold from lower-risk forms of gambling. Future gambling policy here should not focus solely on treating the individuals who have experienced harm but on regulating the availability and accessibility of the products at the root of that harm. I am not sure whether Members have experienced the same thing as I have. At Christmas, I bought someone a present of a ticket from one of our local firms that offers prizes of houses, villas in Spain, a quarter of a million pounds and £300,000. I will be honest: I am not an abolitionist, and I bought a ticket. Since I bought that ticket, every single day, my phone has been hammered with text messages and emails. I am not against gambling, but we need to get ahead of this curve. That is why, when we are having these debates, we need to remember that the leader of the Opposition was absolutely right: debates such as the earlier debate and this one need to be better linked. We need to get serious about this. There is stuff that we can do in the House and there is stuff that needs to be done at Westminster. Studies have shown that the large gambling operators have substantial numbers of followers — unfortunately I have inadvertently found myself to be one of them through buying something as a present — and that they engage in regular activity on social media accounts. One study found that the largest betting operators in the UK — Betfred, Bet365, Coral, Flutter, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and a group called Entain — posted almost 20,000 tweets in eight months in 2019, which is an average of 80 a day. Elon Musk is giving them a run for their money. I had never heard of Entain, so I googled it to see what it is and what it had done. In 2022, it was fined £17 million. If it could be fined £17 million, I suggest that that fine was probably a small percentage of what it was making off the back of people across the UK. To me, that is indicative of the harm that is being inflicted on people who suffer with a gambling addiction.

Absolutely.

I do indeed. We have touched on something that is really important to get right. I agree that free spins are being deliberately pushed. The software in our phones is incredibly intuitive. It will spot the person who is looking at things for a wee bit longer, and I think that that is called microtargeting. For our land-based organisations, we can more easily monitor that. That is why we need to get the balance right in all the legislative approaches that are taken, whether in this House or in Westminster. The worst thing that we can do is to drive gambling underground, where it will be done in the dark, in the middle of the night, at a time that people will be at greatest risk.

943 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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