Source · Select Committees · Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Recommendation 18
18
Accepted
Paragraph: 100
Require Government and Commission to publish monitoring plan for land-based gambling reform impacts.
Recommendation
The accessibility of online gambling means that some of the supply-level restrictions on the land-based sector are less relevant than when the Gambling Act 2005 was passed. The Committee therefore considers that the White Paper’s proposed reforms to modernise land-based gambling are appropriate. However, in its response to this report, the Government must set out how it and the Gambling Commission will be monitoring the impact of these changes, particularly the increased availability of Category B gaming machines in high street venues, on the risk of gambling harm.
Government Response Summary
The government commits to monitoring the impact of changes to the land-based sector, particularly Category B machines, by using regular Gambling Commission statistics, continuing to collect in-depth data from industry on player behaviour, and leveraging the Commission's stakeholder engagement and compliance assessments.
Paragraph Reference:
100
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The Government will monitor the impact of the changes to the land-based sector, particularly the increased availability of Category B machines, in a number of ways. Firstly, we will use the regular cycle of statistics captured by the Gambling Commission to analyse these changes. For example, the annual Industry Statistics will provide us with the precise numbers of machines by category and venue, alongside the associated Gross Gambling Yield. We will be able to use these statistics to understand how the land-based sector is evolving following the implementation of our proposed changes. In addition, we have already started to collect some in-depth data from industry to understand more precisely how people play on different types of machines. We have been able to gather information on things such as the average length of sessions by machines and the average stake. This data has given us a snapshot into the behaviour of players on certain types of machines in certain venues. We plan on asking industry for this data on a regular basis so that we can understand whether our changes are altering the way people are playing on machines, using metrics such as session time and session spend. We will also work with industry to understand which parts of this data can be published. We have included some of it in our response to the consultation, but its use has been limited by the commercial sensitivity of the data and the small number of machine manufacturers in the market. The Gambling Commission’s regular programme of stakeholder engagement and compliance assessments will allow it to monitor licensee’s response to, and compliance with, the changes to the regulatory framework for land-based gambling.