Reform of online gambling needed to prevent more family tragedies, says Sir Iain Duncan Smith

The former Tory leader said action is needed to prevent online gambling addiction

TORY grandee Sir Iain Duncan Smith says the Government has to take action to prevent suicides and family tragedies caused by online gambling.

Sir Iain, vice chair of the Gambling Related Harm All Party Parliamentary Group, has previously said he would “go to war” with the Government if it watered down proposed reforms in a forthcoming White Paper.

He told GB News that reforms shouldn’t mean restricting people’s choice to gamble but should focus on harm reduction.

Sir Iain, who said there is a particular problem with online gambling, commented: “It’s not about restricting gambling, people will gamble and there’s no problem with that – people mostly gamble OK, reasonably.

“The big problem we’ve had is the advent of online gambling. The Internet has changed the nature of the relationship with gambling and its ability to control the harm that takes place so lots of people get caught up in this spiral of debt.

“And often late night gambling through the late night and into the early hours in the morning people doubling up because they can do it online often then take places like fraud, abuses, etc, because they get desperate and plunging into this spiral of debt.

“There have been suicides, a lot of suicides. There’s been a lot of family tragedy as a result of all of this.”

In an interview during To The Point with Patrick Christys & Mercy Muroki on GB News and went on to point the finger of blame at the Labour Party.

He said: “All of this goes on in a way that 15 years ago would not have been conceived of…when originally these gambling laws were completely liberalised, which they were under the previous Labour government.

“The internet was in its infancy, what now needs to happen…is about understanding the balance of the threat and the risks with people’s freedoms to do what they wish to do without let or hindrance.

“And I think that’s the balance that we’re trying to achieve at the moment.”

He said the parliamentary group has had success previously after campaigning to get stake limits places on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in betting shops.

“That actually helped get rid of the problem, which was what we call the kind of crack cocaine of gambling, forcing people into the spiral of debt,” said Sir Iain.

“Always near pubs, getting drunks going in betting, getting angry, smashing up a shop, that sort of thing, so that helps alleviate that issue.

“But from there we then started looking at online gambling and the gambling companies themselves, many of them have behaved really badly in pursuing people.

“They make most of their money from people who gamble very regularly and gamble significantly. That’s where most of their profit is made.”

One of the techniques used by gambling firms which Sir Iain wants to see banned are VIP gambling rooms where punters are induced to gamble even more heavily. 

“One of the areas that we’re absolutely keen to see banned is VIP rooms. This is where they offer you celebrity tickets and meetings and parties and special football matches or whatever, to those that are in their VIP room, because they know that that group of people are likely to gamble and gamble heavily.

“The second thing is they have made…next to no effort at times to check whether those who are gambling really heavily can actually genuinely afford it.”