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Your Statement of Principles, the GLA, updated Codes of Practice and Annual Returns
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You will no doubt be aware that a consultation on the update to your Statement of Principles for Gambling is required to be completed and published by January 2022. To assist you in this process the Commission has published a revised version of the GLA as well as track changes version. We have only updated the GLA in ways which reflect changes already made in previous consultations, such as those to the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) and any legislative changes. We have therefore not conducted a consultation.
We consider it unlikely that the changes made will need any major alterations to your Statement although that is a matter for local discretion. On a related point, you should remember that a 12-week consultation on matters such as your Statement is not a prerequisite. Again, it is a matter for local determination.
The Commission has now published an updated version of the Consolidated Codes of Practice for Local Authorities. These are the Social Responsibility Codes and Ordinary Codes that operators must have regard to. This replaces the one published in July 2020. These will assist with your inspection regime.
A big thanks to all the Local Authorities who were able to complete their Annual Returns this year. We are very well aware of the difficulties there have been. Due to the lower number of returns we have decided to publish them as a spreadsheet rather than our full annual report. The portal for the last 12 months Returns is now open.
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The Gambling Commission has unveiled its new three-year Corporate Strategy
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This sets out the Commission’s focus as it continues to protect the public and players from harm.
Launched alongside the Commission’s 2021 to 2022 Business Plan, the new Strategy will be delivered through five priority areas:
- protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed by gambling
- a fairer market and more informed consumers
- keeping crime out of gambling
- optimising returns to good causes from the National Lottery
- improving gambling regulation.
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Safer Gambling, Community Initiatives and Strategic Partnerships
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Addiction Recovery Agency (ARA) and Beacon Counselling Trust (BCT) seek to design and delivering effective treatment services for gambling-related harms. Their experience has led them to recognise two important gaps in treatment services in Great Britain. First, there is a gap in community-based initiatives that reach and identify people where they experience harms. Currently people are expected to self-identify and seek treatment. Second, there is a gap in innovative prevention strategies to reduce the number of individuals requiring treatment in the first place.
ARA and BCT have received regulatory settlement funding to mobilise two community-based initiatives that address these gaps and move the aims of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms forwards. GREO, a body which seeks to deliver knowledge translation for safer gambling, is joining the project team as a third-party evaluation partner.
The two initial projects are ‘Don’t Bet Your Life On It’ and ‘Bet You Can Help’. These projects represent the part of a series of community-based initiatives designed to engage with targeted at-risk populations in diverse contexts using a public health approach, such as workplace settings, culturally and linguistically diverse communities, criminal justice, veterans, and the homeless. This engagement is intended to:
- Provide accessible safer gambling education, developed by players for players
- Strengthen the identification of individuals experiencing gambling harms where they live, work, and play
- Develop community capacity for a mental health first aid approach for gambling harm that normalises talking about gambling harm and promotes early intervention
- Create frictionless access to treatment by making finding support easier and faster
Don’t Bet Your Life On It (DBYLOI) was designed in partnership with PGSolutions, a group who has experienced significant gambling related harms, to create accessible safer gambling education that resonates with players. To do so, both lived experience and clinical experience were factored into the campaign. The campaign encourages and supports players to put safeguards in play to prevent harm and signposts them to treatment and supports, if needed.
Community groups, public health organisations, and gambling operators can adopt the programme to provide players with support at any level of play. The DBYLOI Toolkit can be accessed here: https://www.dontbetyourlifeonit.co.uk/
Bet You Can Help (BYCH) is a gambling harms first aid community outreach model that trains community members, public health professionals, and employers to identify signs of gambling harms and have conversations with those at-risk. By normalising conversations about gambling harm and facilitating place-based identification of those at-risk, individuals will be encouraged to access treatment and supports before they experience severe harms. This training is accredited by the Royal Society of Public Health and will be offered as a Level 2 OFQUAL training course, the first of its kind in the UK. Specialised formats of the training will be created for vulnerable and marginalised communities, beginning with South Asian communities and those accessing the criminal justice system.
While developing Don’t Bet Your Life On It and Bet You Can Help, the project team recognised additional opportunities for community-based initiatives to support gambling harm reduction where people live, work, and play. The partners worked together to map out the current and planned initiatives, and how they could work together as a catalyst for change in the safer gambling landscape.
GREO led the development of a Theory of Change (an evaluation product) to both illustrate and articulate this initiative — the ‘Safer Gambling Movement’.
The Safer Gambling Movement Theory of Change (TOC) explains how the activities of this initiative contribute to a chain of results that lead to the desired outcomes and impacts. The process of developing a TOC identified gaps and strengthened programming, focused resource allocation, and will be used as a communication tool with stakeholders and future funders. The TOC will also be used to inform a robust monitoring and evaluation program.
As the work by ARA, BCT, and GREO continues to grow, they will be creating theories of change for each initiative and evaluating the impact of each at the level of the initiative and to understand its contribution. The project team looks forward to sharing these completed evaluations with National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms stakeholders in early 2022.
For more information on Don’t Bet Your Life On It and Bet You Can Help, contact Graham England (CEO, Ara) at grahamengland@recovery4all.co.uk or Neil Platt (Clinical Director, BCT) at Neil.Platt@beaconcounsellingtrust.co.uk
For more information on how GREO can help Strategy Partners build evaluation capacity, visit https://www.greo.ca/en/safer-gambling-evaluation-evidence-hub.aspx or contact Jess Voll, Evaluation Lead, at jess@greo.ca
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Gambling and COVID - new data published by GC
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Data shows the impact of Covid-19 on gambling behaviour using operator data from March 2021 and consumer research data from January to March 2021
Visit our website for the full report
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GamCare’s Industry Code for the Display of Safer Gambling Information (Gambling Websites and Apps) was published in March 2021. It provides businesses with a range of measures to improve the display of Safer Gambling information on gambling websites and apps. The Code recognises that businesses are already making considerable progress in this field, but also that more can be done to increase accessibility and awareness of tools and support options for customers.
Read more
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Compliance update – illegal machines findings
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Man set up illegal North Sheilds social club in back garden to fund lavish lifestyle
Read the full article
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