Memorandum from the Addiction Recovery
Foundation (DGB 31)
Thank you so much for your emails updating me
on this, and particularly for your email of 19 November requesting
written evidence. It came too late to notify readers in November's
Addiction Today magazine but I will publicise the website in the
January issue.
THE CHARITY'S
ROLE IN
TREATING DEPENDENCIES/ADDICTIONS,
INCLUDING GAMBLING:
— The Foundation has been a leading
source of information to professionals for almost 15 years.
— Our publication, Addiction Today,
is the most widely-read publication in the UK addiction field.
— Our website was one of the first
in the addictions field and receives about 18,000 "hits"
a month.
— We hold authoritative seminars and
conferences; the next, international one will be in April 2004.
— We founded the Uniity group which
enables clinicians and managers from different beliefs and approaches
to work together and so most effectively treat people suffering
from addiction(s).
— We receive about 1,000 telephone
calls every year from people desperately looking for help, and
a similar number of email requests.
— Our staff serve/have served on steering
committees of related organisations such as the Employee Assistance
Professionals Association and Clouds' Employers Forum.
— So we are very well versed in dependencies
such as gambling and in disseminating evidence-based good practice
to help address them.
— As part of our business plan, we
look forward to working with the Gambling Industry Charitable
Trust.
THE ROLE
OF SOCIETY
LOTTERIES IN
SUPPORTING THIS
CHARITABLE WORK:
None of this vital and highly-regarded charitable
work has been supported by even a penny from the National Lottery,
and much valuable staff time has been wasted endeavouring to do
so. We have promoted our own lotteries since 1989, as "seed
money" for the charity. And when income from potential donors
was instead diverted to the National Lottery from 1995 onward,
the charity was enabled to stay operational when it entered into
an agreement with Inter Lotto in that year to manage lotteries
for it. These started with scratchcards, then online lotteries
such as Pronto, 97-9 and Hotspot 01-3. Since 1995, the charity
has received about £250,000 in this way. It is no exaggeration
to say that, without this society-lottery income, many thousands
of people—whom we have been able to support—might
not have been helped.
The vast majority of our income is operational
(subscriptions, advertising, entrance fees) but there is a deficit
which must be met. Society-lottery funding has been necessary
not only because the National Lottery diverted traditional donations
but also because it is difficult to attract funds to the treatment
of drug/alcohol/ behavioural problems such as gambling as these
issues are not seen as "deserving" in the way that children
and old people are, for example. It is even more difficult to
get funding for non-"coal face" work such as educating
clinicians and raising standards in order to accredit the field
and help them to help others. It is not "visible" enough
for many donors who would prefer, for example, to sponsor one
specific person or a building.
THE NEED
FOR AN
EVIDENCE/RESEARCH
BASE:
We have given evidence before, to the Home Office
in 1998 when another draft gambling bill hastily tried to address
the problems of which we are all too aware. Then and now, we offer
every support for the aims of the bills—but requested amendments
so that their recommendations were based on evidence and research.
Then, as now, we highlighted the fact that there
was no evidence that rapid-draw lotteries cause excessive play.
If you have such evidence, please do show it to me to inform the
views of this charity's trustees.
Then, as now, we mentioned that, seemingly paradoxically,
pubs were good places to hold online lotteries because they are
legally bound to exclude children and adolescents. The risk of
becoming addicted to gambling, as we all know, is dependent on
how young a person starts gambling—so this is a key consideration.
Peer pressure in pubs also helps to prevent excess.
Then, as now, we asked for research about exactly
what frequency of play encouraged chasing losses and what frequency
had no effect on this.
Then, as now, we highlighted the dangerous contrast
of slot machines which are freely available to youngsters even
in pubs and which encourage players to chase losses because of
their immediate "quick fix"—another key factor
in becoming addicted to gambling.
It is over five years since we highlighted these
gaps in research—and wise decisions cannot be made unless
they have a firm foundation of fact. As editor of Addiction
Today, I have heard of no research commissioned to address
these gaps in knowledge. It might be that they exist and I have
just not discovered them, in which case I would again be grateful
if you could steer me towards these pieces of research. But if
the research has not been undertaken—why not?
What does empirical research say about online
lotteries? What does it say about the links between alcohol or
drugs and gambling? And what does empirical research say about
the different effects of the different types of gambling, such
as slot machines, scratchcards, football pools and online games
of different types? Is any empirical research about frequency
of play emerged?
THE NEED
FOR A
LEVEL PLAYING
FIELD, AND
EQUITY FOR
CHARITIES:
I applaud the aims of this draft bill to modernise
the law relating to society lotteries—but, as it is drafted,
it could destroy us. The devil, as always, is in the detail. In
its current wording, the Draft Gambling Bill is open to the misinterpretation
that you are drafting it to protect the National Lottery which
has not helped any of the small, effective and creditable charities
which I know. I would be grateful for evidence-based clarification
so that viable and supportive society lotteries such as Inter
Lotto can continue to give revenue to such charities, on a level
playing field to the National Lottery.
The trustees and staff of this charity have
a legal obligation to fulfill statutory requirements, and have
extensive expertise and knowledge in all areas of addiction including
gambling. As a charity established to help treat social problems,
we obviously wish to help problem gamblers while accepting the
role of responsible gambling as part of the leisure industry.
Against this background, the trustees wish me to convey their
belief that the government's case to prohibit rapid-draw lotteries
is unsustainable and potentially counterproductive.
December 2003
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