Memorandum from Ladbrokes Worldwide (DGB
70)
Ladbrokes Worldwide is pleased to outline a
short letter to the PLS Committee. We do so with the full knowledge
that the ABB has submitted a detailed paper to the Committee and
without wanting to overwhelm the Committee with extra work we
thought we would keep our comments to a minimum. However we would
like to draw the Committee's attention to the following:
Ladbrokes Worldwide:
As the largest betting company in the world
Ladbrokes is well placed to comment on the draft Gambling Bill.
Our experience in betting and gaming dates back over many years
and extends from our pools business through to remote gambling.
We currently have 1870 shops in the UK, and a further 116 in Ireland
and 321 in Belgium. We employ approximately 12,000 people. Our
remote gambling business, Ladbrokes.com is a truly global operation
and includes Internet, telephone and interactive services operating
in 13 languages and as many currencies. In addition, through Vernons
we have a long track record in the pool betting business and up
until 2000 we owned a number of high street casinos, which we
sold to Gala. Our parent company, Hilton Group plc will also be
making a short submission to the Committee on resort casinos.
Social Responsibility:
At the heart of the Government's proposals is
the objective of ensuring that the industry behaves with responsibility
and integrity. We agree with this. Ladbrokes takes the issue of
social responsibility very seriously, we are supporters of the
Gambling Industry Charitable Trust and GamCare. We received on
December 9 independent verification from GamCare as their first
socially responsible operator. It is important that the Gambling
Commission keeps under review matters of social responsibility
and we think its right for the new Gambling Commission to have
the powers to remove licences from those companies that are deemed
not to be behaving responsibly.
Fixed Odds Betting Terminals:
We are pleased that agreement was reached between
the Government, the Gaming Board and the industry together with
support from GamCare for the code of conduct that now governs
FOBTs. The draft bill highlights the importance of codes of conduct
and we would echo this as a model for other parts of the draft
Gambling Bill.
Betting Exchanges:
The Association of British Bookmakers (ABB)
outlines in greater detail the betting industry's concerns about
betting exchanges. We urge the Committee to carry out an investigation
into betting exchanges. We do this not because we are opposed
to exchanges per se but because it is vital that serious work
is carried out to understand the different characteristics of
exchanges. Principally we believe it is important to distinguish
between those people that use exchanges for recreational purposes
and those that use them for professional reasons. Policy must
therefore follow from this premise.
Regulation:
The new Regulator, the Gambling Commission,
must try to achieve better regulation and ensure that the regulator
remains flexible and able to adapt and change to market forces.
With regard to licensing, the issuing of personal licensing must
be proportionate and not too onerous.
Remote Gambling:
The Government must try and find a balance between
ensuring that the principles of regulation and responsibility
are transferred to remote gambling from retail betting. This must
be done without stifling the ability of UK operators to compete
in an international market whilst also providing sensible licensing
arrangements for those UK companies that operate on a number of
different platforms.
As I said we have intentionally kept our comments
to a minimum and this letter should be seen as highlighting just
a small number of key points in addition to the submission from
the ABB. Ladbrokes would of course be delighted to give further
written or oral evidence to the committee should they wish.
December 2003
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