Recommendation 8

HM Government Accepted

The white paper outlined proposals to make online gambling products safer by design and we welcome the support of the Committee on these proposals as we and the Gambling Commission progress with implementation. The Gambling Commission will soon publish its response to its summer 2023 consultation, which will include proposals for changes to remote game design. These new rules will strive to make online games intrinsically safer across the sector, but the Gambling Commission will continue to monitor the impact of any changes post-implementation, and could make further updates if needed. We note the Committee’s specific recommendation that point-of-sale information should be provided to customers about the risk of specific products and their design features. As part of the gambling act review, we considered proposals to assign risk ratings to different gambling products where each new game would be tested to appraise its potential to cause harm. Our work concluded that the existing models for measuring a product’s riskiness are not sufficiently granular to provide meaningful insights and comparisons across the variety of online products. Further, gambling harms arise from a combination of complex factors. Core product characteristics can influence harm, such as event frequency and features that increase the speed of play. But there are often other factors such as personal circumstances, level of expenditure, the number of activities gambled on and frequency and duration of play also contribute to harm. We therefore remain of the view that a set of design rules which apply to all games – those which are delivered through the Gambling Commission’s remote technical standards and testing strategy – is more efficient than attempting to assess each of the thousands of games that are released every year individually. Public health campaigns can be effective at raising awareness and reducing stigma associated with harm. However, efforts to change behaviours and reduce harm are likely to have more impact where messages are integrated and reinforced throughout the customer journey. Further, messages should be tailored to fit both where messaging is seen and the severity of harm that consumers may be experiencing or at risk of experiencing. This approach would not only reach consumers at risk of gambling harm, but also lead to more informed and empowered consumers overall, by improving the quality and accessibility of information and messaging and delivering this at the right time. We agree that gambling messaging can and should be improved to better empower customers. The white paper outlined our commitment to develop systematic safer gambling messaging, independent from industry, to maximise the information available to consumers and enable them to make informed decisions with a better understanding of the risks. The Department of Health and Social Care has initialised a review of the evidence around effective public health-led messaging, which will be the basis for joint work with the government and the Gambling Commission to develop a robust new approach to informational messaging throughout the user journey, including at the point-of-sale.