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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 139 iii HOUSE OF LORDS House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE joint committee on the draft gambling bill
Thursday 8 January 2004 PROFESSOR MARK GRIFFITHS, DR EMANUEL
MORAN and MS
HELENA CHAMBERS, MS JENNIFER HOGG, MS RACHEL LAMPARD and Evidence heard in Public Questions 234 - 304
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Joint Committee on the Draft Gambling Bill on Thursday 8 January 2004 Members present: Mr John Greenway
Memoranda submitted by The Royal College of Psychiatrists and Professor Jim Orford
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Professor Mark Griffiths, Chartered Psychologist and Professor of Gambling Studies, Nottingham Trent University, Dr Emanuel Moran, Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Professor Jim Orford, Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, examined. Q234 Chairman: Good morning everyone. May I begin by welcoming Professor Griffiths, Dr Moran and Professor Orford to our proceedings; they will be answering questions in just a moment. May I also make the point that Elliot Grant from the Bill team is present and available to speak to us if spoken to, should we be straying from some meaning in relation to the Bill. May I ask you to note that this is a public evidence session and the transcript will be produced and placed on the internet. We think it unlikely there will be any division during this Committee, but, were that to happen, we would suspend for 10 minutes and clear the public gallery. May I also ask you to note that a full declaration of interests from members of the Committee was made at the beginning of the first meeting and information for witnesses and a note of those interests is available. Could I confirm to everyone that time is tight and they should not feel obliged to answer a question if they have nothing to add to what other witnesses have already said. This is particularly important where we have three witnesses now and then four witnesses later on. Do you think vulnerability to problem gambling is inherent in the very activity of gambling? Or are some people especially vulnerable as the licensing objectives appear to suggest? Dr Moran: The first point I would like to make is the notion of problem gambling is a rather dubious one. The Royal College of Psychiatrists, whom I am representing here, does not accept it as a valid concept. The condition really that is agreed by the WHO is pathological gambling; that is, all excessive gambling associated with disorder. I think we have to recognise that pathological gambling is a behavioural disorder and therefore it is heterogeneous: there are a variety of causes which are responsible for the disorder and they broadly fall into social and individual. Clearly, there are individual vulnerabilities. Among the social factors, I think the most important is the availability of facilities. Gambling does not occur in a vacuum; it is organised on a commercial basis, with all the trappings that go with that, and therefore there are commercial pressures. The availability of facilities and the social pressures encouraging gambling are very crucial to the disorder. Professor Griffiths: I would add that when it comes to problem gambling there are obviously vulnerable individuals but there are also some activities which are inherently more problematic and/or addictive than others. I am sure we will be getting into the area of, for instance, slot-machines later on, but we know for a fact that slot-machines are inherently more addictive than, say, a weekly lottery. We know, therefore, that the structural characteristics of how games are designed actually do induce problems in some people. Added with that are the vulnerabilities of individuals - we know there are vulnerable populations like miners, problem gamblers, the intoxicated, for instance. These are various segments of the population that do seem to be more susceptible to problem gambling. Q235 Chairman: To summarise, you are saying, Dr Moran, that this is a behavioural problem. We are having some difficulty ourselves in defining problem gambling. We went to GamCare yesterday and were given about four different definitions by four different people with a bad experience of gambling, but I think the behavioural element is what came through in what they had all said. Is there a vulnerability as well which arises from ignorance of how gambling works or a general lack of time-and-money management skills in individuals? Professor Griffiths: However you like to describe it, problem gambling is basically a syndrome. There are lots of overlapping consequences of the behaviour. How a person gets from being a non-gambler through to a social gambler and to a problem gambler will be different in different people. Some people will have a genetic susceptibility; for some people it will be the environment in which they were brought up; for some people it will be to do with the nature of the activity itself. You can look at a problem gambler and say they are doing x, y and z, and, even though how they got from a to b may be very different, what they display is very, very similar. So, yes, it is a behavioural outcome but there are psychological, social and biological antecedents to that particular behaviour. Professor Orford: I would agree with what has been said but I would say there is much clearer evidence that the potential for addictiveness of gambling is inherent in the activity itself. First year psychology undergraduates learning the laws of how people acquire habits which are difficult to break, are often shown a picture of a gambling machine because it is an almost perfect mechanism for creating a habit that is difficult to break. So, I would say, inherent in the activity, yes. Personal vulnerability there are many ideas, many theories about, but on the whole there is very little evidence for it. The main vulnerabilities lie in some more obvious things. Being male (versus being female) is one of the factors; being of low income is one of the vulnerability factors; and having a parent who gambled heavily is another factor. On some of the other personality ideas - whether it is to do with genetics, self-esteem, being an impulsive personality - there is very little evidence for that. Dr Moran: The notion that pathological gambling is either an illness or just plain ignorance I think ignores the fact, as Professor Orford has just indicated, that ultimately the activity of gambling inherently is habit forming. We see it illustrated in terms of the gaming machine which used to be known the "one-armed bandit". It speaks for itself. There are these elements to gambling which encourage participation and, going to extremes, ultimately leading to what has been referred to as "chasing losses". I think we have to recognise that at the end of the day we talk about "gamblers who lose" but ultimately all gamblers lose because the gambling industry has to make a profit. Where does it dome from other than from the pool that goes into it via the punter? There is a variety of factors. I am quite prepared on behalf of the college to submit another paper to you which will spell these things out in a bit more detail, in terms of personal characteristics and broader issues. Q236 Chairman: We would be very happy to have that. Could I ask you to make one other observation. Some of the people we met yesterday who admitted to having a gambling problem slightly surprised us in the sense that their definition of a problem was not necessarily that they were losing a lot of money. In other words, they had not fallen into financial ruin: the problem was to do with the addiction in the sense that they had lost all enjoyment from gambling but they felt compelled to do it on a daily basis. Does that come within your scope of definition? Dr Moran: Certainly, Mr Chairman. Basically pathological gambling is excessive gambling which leads to social and psychological and financial difficulty. It can be any combination of these. Like all human behaviour, it is heterogeneous. Take crime, for instance: there is no one explanation for crime. Similarly, with pathological gambling there is no one explanation. In helping people with difficulties, one of the first things one has to do is to set down the elements of the disorder and one pathological gambler will be different from others. One can categorise them. I have made some attempt to do this in different varieties, from the individual factors at one extreme to social factors at the other end. But, as Professor Orford has indicated, the issue is very much in the same league as, say, crime, where there is a variety of factors and most of the factors are socially determined. Professor Griffiths: May I add one thing, Mr Chairman? We talk about addiction. Financial ruin is not the basis of any addiction that I know. Most of us on this panel who have studied addictions for many years would say that addictions are really about the activity being the single most important thing in that person's life and compromising everything in their life to do that particular activity, getting withdrawal symptoms if they cannot do that activity, having cravings for that activity if they are unable to do it, and using that activity as a reliable and consistent way of modifying their mood. Financial ruin does not come into that. You can find gamblers who fulfil all those criteria. Unfortunately, most gamblers do lose a lot of money along the way, but you will get gamblers who have maybe not lost money along the way but are still addicted. Q237 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Do you accept the figures contained in the Gambling Prevalence Survey of the number of people who are affected either by a pathological disorder or problem gambling (depending on how you want to define it) of between 0.6 per cent and 0.8 per cent? If the figure is as low as that, it means that 99 per cent of the population does not have a problem. Professor Orford: May I, as one of the authors of the British Gambling Prevalence Survey, immediately come in. I think people have been rather naughty, I have to say, in interpreting the figures as saying that we have a low gambling ----- Q238 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Which people? Professor Orford: The Government for a start. Q239 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I thought that was what you meant but I felt the need to clarify it. Professor Orford: There are several points I would like to make about this. From a public health point of view, any disorder which was thought to affect one-third of a million people in the country would be considered to be a very serious public health issue. That is the first point. The second point is that the estimate is only an estimate and there is a confidence interval scientifically around that estimate. All you can say is that there are two other countries in the world that have done national surveys that appear to be statistically different from Britain, and one is higher and one is lower. Australia is significantly higher. That is clear. The other European country - and the only European country where a survey has been carried out - is Sweden, and that is just significantly lower. It is not possible statistically to say that the British rate that we found is significantly lower than the American rate or than the New Zealand rate, for example. That is the second point I want to make. The other point is that 0.6 or 0.8 is of course just the percentage of everybody in the country. That includes millions of people who do not gamble at all; millions of other people who only gamble on the National Lottery. As soon as you start to express it as a percentage of all people who gambled on anything last year or as soon as you start to express it as a percentage of young people between the ages of 16 and 35 or as soon as you start to express it as the percentage of people who bet on fruit machines last year, of course the percentage goes up. Q240 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: You have anticipated my second question precisely. Professor Orford: My last point - and this is a really important point - is that nobody - and this is Mark Griffiths' area of expertise, I know - has mentioned the rate for adolescents. All the evidence from this country (the survey here) and the United States and elsewhere is that there is a negative correlation between age and problem or pathological gambling. The 16-24 year olds had the highest rate in our group, and if you take that down to the group we did not look at (because they were under 16s), adolescents, all the evidence is that the prevalence rate there is the highest. Surprisingly. I was surprised when I started to find out this. I do not know if Mark would agree, but probably the best evidence is Susan Fisher's evidence, of 10,000 pupils between the ages of 12 and 15 in 100 schools across England and Wales, finding a prevalence rate of over 5 per cent. So there are several factors. I do not think we should continue to say that Britain has a low rate of problem gambling. It does not. Professor Griffiths: On this 99 per cent figure that is always used, I do have to echo that the vast majority out there simply do not gamble or gamble on the activities that we know really are not problematic. We know that a bi-weekly National Lottery ticket does not cause immense problems for loads of people. It you looked at, for instance, slot-machine players who define themselves as slot-machine players, and looked at the prevalence of problem gambling in those individuals, it would be a lot higher than the 0.6 to 0.8 per cent you are mentioning. As you say, if you take age into account as well, if you look at males aged between 16 to 25 who play slot-machines, you will find that the proportion of problem gambling is very, very high. It is a significant public health concern, as Professor Orford has pointed out. Q241 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: You think there should be a new gambling Prevalence Survey, which was hinted at by Lord McIntosh when he gave evidence to us before Christmas, in order to bring the figures up to date. If such a survey is conducted, do you think it s necessary to define much better the problems one is looking at and to look at age and different activities? Professor Griffiths: I think prevalence surveys are a useful tool but prevalence studies do not tell us a lot. They certainly do not tell us anything theoretically about gambling. All they can provide is some benchmark data, which is useful for informing public policy on a particular issue. I reckon that if you did the prevalence survey again now, from the one that was done in 2000 you would find very minor differences. Okay, you might find a couple of per cent increase in terms of people playing slot-machines, or a few per cent down in terms of playing the National Lottery. It would be much better to do one post de-regulation, to see the real effects in terms of what de-regulation will do to this country in terms of problem and social gambling. Q242 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Or look at the areas which are opposed to de-regulation and look at what the problems are there. Professor Griffiths: Yes. There are obviously some areas which we know, even since the year 2000 - for instance, internet gambling, spread betting - have caught on dramatically. Those figures will be dramatically different. Obviously those particular areas, where we know there is a particular new form of gambling that has come in, would be interesting to look at. My guess is that if you did an identical prevalence survey tomorrow, using the same kind of things that we used in 2000, you would not find a massive difference in people's gambling behaviour at the moment. Professor Orford: I would have said the same until I reminded myself exactly when the first survey was done. It will be five years later this year. Most of the data was collected late in 1999. We always said and everybody associated with it said we ought to do this every five years Q243 Chairman: Should the Government pay for that? Professor Orford: Yes. Dr Moran: I agree with everything my colleagues have said but I would make one point. I would remind the Committee the incidence of schizophrenia is one per cent but nobody in this room would seriously suggest that it is not a very serious problem. Q244 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Each of our distinguished witnesses has mentioned the word "habit" several times. I apologise if I am asking you to simplify a complicated question too much. What level of probability that a habit will be formed would you expect if, let us say, ten people went for the first time into a place where there was gambling? - and I accept that machines are more addictive than others. What proportion of that ten people would be likely to form a habit? When the habit is formed, what level of difficulty, compared with other addictions, would you expect to break that habit? Professor Griffiths: I do not know about my colleagues but I think that is almost an impossible question to answer - and maybe that was a deliberately hard question. I would take you back to what habits are all about. I have always argued that almost any behaviour is potentially addictive because addictions really rely on constant rewards. If constant rewards are not there, you cannot possibly become addicted to something. It is one of the reasons why I have argued, for instance, on a bi-weekly lottery, that no one is going to become addicted to something that you play only twice a week. A slot-machine, where you can play 12 times a minute, is a very different kettle of fish. This is something where people can be rewarded financial, socially, psychology every few seconds, and that is why people develop these habits. That is why habits are reinforcing and they lead to various addictive behaviours. Trying to say what percentage of individuals when they first go into an arcade will become "addicted", is an incredibly hard thing to do without knowing what the person's vulnerabilities are to start with, knowing more about the general population. I would be surprised if any one of my colleagues here would be able to answer that question. Q245 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I am sorry about the level of difficulty. We are concerned obviously about machines, as has already been expressed. The idea now that gambling is just a leisure activity, another mainline leisure activity, gives us all concern where young people are concerned. We want to get some idea, with the new de-regulation in prospect, what increase in the gambling habit are we likely to see among young people. Dr Moran: To a certain extent, I agree: I think it is an impossible question really to answer honestly. It is a bit like: How long is a piece of string? I think we have to highlight the fact that in gambling you have a particular form of activity which functions on the basis of what psychologists refer to as optimum conditioning; in other words, in terms of reward. The schedule of rewards is on the basis, again, of what psychologists refer to as intermittent variable ratio reinforcement; in other words, there is a reward which appears intermittently. Each time you do it, there is not a reward. It does occur, but it does not occur regularly. It is unpredictable. That schedule of intermittent variable ratio reinforcement is well-known, has been known for decades, to be the best system of habit formation. It is the basis upon which we all operate. If you phone your girlfriend every night, she gets bored with you. If you stop phoning her, she loses interest. The important thing is to phone intermittently and unpredictably. That is what gambling is all about. Lord Faulkner of Worcester: That is very helpful. Lord Mancroft: Very helpful. Chairman: In other words, you are saying you cannot win! That is the point. Q246 Lord Mancroft: Accepting what you have said, one of the areas on which we have been focusing and about which we are concerned is young people - and children in arcades, for example, is the obvious thing. With my interest in drugs and alcohol, we in our field - and I think you would agree with this - generally have the view that the younger children are when starting to use drugs or alcohol, the more likely they are to have problems later on. Is that true with gambling? I think I know the answer to that but I would like to hear it from you. The fact that AWP machines in arcades are not the most exciting things in the world and they are not really great reward givers, are they a factor, for those kids who play them, in those kids growing up to have gambling problems? Professor Griffiths: In answer to your first question, I know of at least four independent studies that have shown that the younger you start the more likely you are to have problems - even within the adolescent period. I did a study way back in 1990 showing that those kids who started playing slot-machines at the age of nine years of age or below were significantly more likely to have problems than those who started at the age of 12 or above, and I have seen another three surveys in this country alone which have actually replicated that particular finding. The interesting thing and, I suppose, the good news for adolescents is we know that with all, what I would call, risky but rewarding behaviours, the peak use, whether for drugs, alcohol or gambling, does peak in adolescence and young adulthood. You will find a lot of adolescents will mature out and spontaneously remit, and when they take on other things in their life, job, first baby, marriage, for instance, the problem gambling will often disappear. It is quite obvious that when you ask problem gamblers about their history of gambling they will have said they started in adolescence, but that does not mean, we know for a fact, that all people who have had problems in adolescence go on to be problem adult gamblers. We know for a fact that the prevalence rates of problem gambling in adolescence are at least twice as high as they are in adults. We know for a fact, even though this is a very vulnerable population, that the good news is a lot of it drops out. The gaming industry and the Government might turn round and say, "Well, if behaviour does drop out, why should we worry?" The reason we worry - and I am talking about kids - is because when you have, say, an 11 year old who for six years suffered educationally, got themselves a criminal record, et cetera because of their behaviour, that has affected them for the rest of their life, even though by 18 they may have got it completely out of their system. There is no doubt that some people do graduate. For instance, I followed 25 people through a three-year period. Only three people out of that 25 graduated on to other forms of gambling. They were all slot-machine players and the thing that they said got them off slot-machines is that the rewards, as you were pointing out, were not high enough. In the end the jackpot on an AWP machine is not something that intrinsically is going to keep people motivated or rewarded. When you introduce things like unlimited prizes, that is a good acquisitional factor to keep people gambling in the first place. AWP machines, although they are called "amusement with prizes" machines, are still gambling machines, and to young people, as far as I am concerned, they are still as addictive as any other slot-machine basically because of things like the operant conditioning process we have outlined, it becomes a repetitive habit pattern. At the end of the day, the jackpot prize, for instance, is most important in why people first start to play an activity. It is not necessarily the main motivating factor that actually keeps people developing and maintaining that activity. Dr Moran: Could I very much support that. From my written evidence, this is something I am particularly concerned about. It does seem to me that the period when in Britain we decided it was okay for children to play gaming machines was a time when it was not really understood some of the evidence that Professor Griffiths is talking about. We now do know that slot-machines are potentially addictive. We do know that they are particularly attractive for adolescents. The Budd Committee report stated very clearly, you will remember, their instincts were absolutely against allowing any kind of machine-playing for under 18 year olds. I have not looked at the MOP survey, but I have seen reports in the press that they asked 1,000 people around the country what their view was, and 82 per cent said they were against children being allowed to play machines of the low stake, low prize type. It does seem to me that the Government now has a responsibility to protect young people which 20 or 30 years ago it was not so clear. It is clear now. I would wish to argue very strongly that it is wrong for Britain to continue to do something which as far as we can make out no other country that has rules at all allows. I was told by a minister in DCMS that Finland allows playing at the age of 15, but that was the only country that has rules that the minister could actually find, apart from Britain, that allows this playing. I think it is quite wrong that they continue to be called "amusement with prizes". Q247 Viscount Falkland: On this question of the "amusement with prizes" machines, Lord McIntosh told us when he came to give evidence that those who wanted to abolish what had existed for many, many years would have to do a bit of research - the research has clearly been done, as you have shown to us - and show what harm they are doing before they will be convinced that this business should be cut out. We have very little time to convince Government - and I sense that my colleagues on this Committee are pretty well convinced that this is a dangerous area which needs to be looked at, and, if not curtailed completely, something has to be done. Would you just add a rider to what you have already said about this question. If it is allowed to continue as it is at present, without any break on it, would you expect our gambling rates to be higher instead of lower than the rest of the English-speaking world, for example? Dr Moran: Chairman, Hippocretes said "Life is short, the art long, experience is fallacious." The point really is that when you have the experience that we are being told about - namely that there are children playing fruit machines and yet the prevalence does not seem to have gone up - we have to see this in the social context. I agree with all that my colleagues have said, and I would remind the Committee that the availability of fruit machines to children over the last few decades has been in a setting of a public policy of unstimulated demand for gambling. That is a very crucial aspect of the whole situation. Certainly my experience and that of my colleagues is that a lot of the young people who get involved in fruit machines in the early/mid teens grow out of it. But then of course a lot of young people get into mischief and grow out of it anyway. I think one of the reasons they have grown out of it is because of the social climate. The Government is now proposing a free for all, abandonment of the policy of unstimulated demand, and I would certainly forecast that in that setting a lot of these young people who drop it will shoot out into further disturbance in terms of pathological gambling. Q248 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: How important is it, do you think, that the children are gambling in arcades where their parents are playing higher value machines? What is the effect of watching perhaps their parents or their parents' friends in the reserved area where the high value machines are being played? What effect does that have? Professor Orford: It has been said that it is protective to have a parent there. But you can equally argue that it is quite the opposite - as seems to be the case. One of the vulnerability factors is the modelling, the demonstrating of gambling behaviour by a parent who also gambles. Being taken into an amusement arcade by a parent, seeing a parent playing a machine, seeing a parent win on a machine, seeing the excitement associated with winning is likely actually to model habitual gambling behaviour rather than protecting a person against gambling behaviour. I do not think having a parent present is necessarily a protective factor at all. Chairman: We are going to move on to what effect the parent will have on problem gambling and changes that are going to be made. Q249 Lord Walpole: The NERA Economic Consultants have reported that the Bill will result in up to one million - so this is not a percentage, it is a number - problem gamblers in the UK, representing a three to four-fold increase from the current level. Do you agree with this estimate? Professor Griffiths: I would say it is plausible. Again, always trying to put a figure on this is very hard to do. I think Professor Orford and I have both mentioned in our writings about something called the "availability hypothesis". Basically, where you increase opportunity and access to gambling, not only do you increase the number of regular gamblers but you will also increase the number of problem gamblers. I have gone on record as saying that may not be proportional. Tessa Jowell was quoted as saying that a 50 per cent increase in turnover of gambling would not lead to any increase in problem gambling whatsoever. I find the mathematics of that unbelievable. I certainly believe that where there is wide de-regulation and massive increased opportunity to gamble, you will get people gambling who have never gambled before. That is not to say they will necessarily become problem gamblers but you will see an increase in problem gambling as a result of massive de-regulation. Whether it is three or four times, however .... But I do not know how they came to that particular figure, but it seems plausible. Professor Orford: I would agree. I do not think there is anybody who has looked at gambling who thinks other than the increased availability will lead to increased problems. The Australian productivity report, which is much the most thorough report, which has looked very carefully at that, came to that conclusion. I think one million is a figure plucked out of the air, to be honest. But suppose it was a 50 per cent increase, from a public health point of view - and my main argument is that I want the Government to see this from a public health point of view, which I do not think they are at the moment - a 50 per cent increase in any rate of disorder in society, putting it up to half a million, would be tremendously significant. Chairman: I want to bring in Jeff, because you have mentioned Australia. Q250 Jeff Ennis: Are there any conclusions we can draw from comparisons with other countries, in terms of what we need to learn in bringing in new legislation here? - particularly the Australian model. Professor Griffiths: I think there are always things to learn from other countries. However, the one caveat I would put on that is that every country has a different culture of gambling. You can look at prevalence surveys in other countries and ask yourselves why some countries seem to have higher prevalence rates than us. I actually think, even though abroad we are seen as a nation of gamblers, that we have a very strict regime in place which has actually minimised the amount of problem gambling amongst the adult population compared with other countries. In Australia recently they have had a massive casino expansion and they have suddenly seen a massive increase in the amount of problem gambling. They have put internet gambling out. They have had a moratorium on that because they have seen a massive increase in that. In Australia, if people want to go to gamble, they actually have to travel quite a long distance to do it; we live in a country where we have 60 million people all crammed into this little space and it is not very far for anybody to travel to gamble in this country. I think, once de-regulation occurs, the opportunities for and access to gambling will be like no other country really. I cannot think of another country .... Take somewhere like Canada, which has also had a massive gambling explosion, they only have half our population in a country that geographically is so much bigger than ours. You cannot always compare like with like. Every country I have looked at that has de-regulated in a big way has seen an increase in problem gambling, and I do not see why that should not occur here, but there will be a different culture in terms of what people will enjoy gambling on. We only have 120 or so casinos in this country. If that number tripled, for instance, I would expect, because of that type of particular gambling, that it would attract a new clientele and there would be new problem gamblers as a result of that particular type of activity. Professor Orford: At the other end of the scale, Sweden is a country with what looks like very tight regulation on gambling and a more restricted range of types of gambling in Sweden. The Government is much more heavily involved in actually running gambling facilities and so on. So you have Australia at one end, I think, as Professor Griffiths has described, and Sweden at the other end and very tightly regulated. Q251 Jeff Ennis: May I ask one supplementary, Chairman, going back to the effects on adolescents and the attraction of machines, et cetera. Do we have any evidence now, because of the enormous expansion in home entertainment - computer games, X-boxes and that sort of thing, to which a lot of young lads in particular are drawn - that that sort of home entertainment facility is having any effect on the potential for problem gambling either one way or the other? Professor Griffiths: I have spent as many years studying things like video game addiction as I have slot-machine addiction. It is quite obvious that there is an overlap between the kind of people who get heavily involved in playing video games and heavily involved in playing slot-machines. Sue Fisher, again, has also done a lot of work on that in this country. The good news if you are addicted, for instance, to a home video game consul is that the financial consequences are a lot less. If I am playing 12 hours a day on a home video consul, the financial consequences are minimal compared with playing 12 hours a day on a slot-machine, although behaviourally it might be doing the same thing, basically, playing game after game, playing for long periods of time. I have always argued that the philosophy of both players is exactly the same: to stay on the machine for as long as possible, using the least amount of money. Fortunately, slot-machines are very expensive to play whereas video games are a lot cheaper. Even if you play in a video game arcade, you can make 20 pence or 50 pence last a long time if you are a very skilful player. The people who are supposedly skilful on slot-machines will not get anywhere near that in terms of time. There is, I think, a large cross-over between the types of people who become addicted to video games and those who become addicted to slot-machines. Jeff Ennis: Thank you, Chairman.
Viscount Falkland: That was an interesting point you made about the distance to travel and the effect that has on this. In visiting France, I have noted in the past there has been a prohibition on having casinos in the Paris area, and only having them in holiday resorts, for example. In this country we are seeing it in terms of the spread of betting opportunities where we have areas of high density of population. Would you see that as a concern that needs to be addressed, for example, in Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, areas of high concentration like that, and that the local authorities should take cognisance of the fact that they should make it more difficult for people to go to casinos by extending the distance between them? It is a question, is it not, of trying to persuade people not to proliferate in particularly high density areas? Professor Griffiths: I think, again, it is a difficult issue. Could I just state for the record that I am not anti-gambling and I certainly do not want to stop adults doing what they want to do. If people want to go to casinos, that is absolutely fine by me. But, in all of this, whatever you do, there is always going to be a price to pay. If a mega-casino opens in Blackpool, my predictions would be that in the indigenous population of Blackpool you will see a rise in the number of problem gamblers who actually live in that locality, because they will have increased opportunity and access - basically because of a huge casino being open probably 24 hours a day. There is also the point that people will flock in, do an activity as part of a legitimate leisure activity, have a wonderful time in Blackpool, maybe come away having won, and that will be exported. It is not then going to Blackpool every night, but, having experienced what they have experienced there, it can be exported back to the towns and small places where they live if there is a gambling facility there. For the vast majority of people, it will be nothing but fun and exciting and a good time out, but, again, I do predict that you will see an increase in problem gambling within the local city or town or locality where those mega-casinos are located, plus for some people who have never even gambled before it will be exported back to where they live. That, again, will be to do with the availability hypothesis: it is because of increased access and opportunity. Dr Moran: I agree with my colleagues about this. I am not against gambling, I do it myself, but the point really is that, in view of the nature of gambling, when you participate in any type of activity it is vital that this should be a conscious decision which you have decided. In a free society, it is obviously highly appropriate that if people want to gamble they should be allowed to do so. What is tending to happen and will undoubtedly happen much more post-legislation is that people will stumble on it. It is very much a characteristic of internet gambling. If you look at the Times or the broadsheets on the internet, at the top there is a free bet: Why not have a go? This is the insidious aspect of the whole situation. But gambling by its very nature must be treated with respect. That does not mean to say that it should be banned or it should be avoided, but it must be treated with respect. Then you are far less likely to get into difficulties. Many of the proposals that are incorporated in the draft Gambling Bill, while on the one hand are saying we want "destination gambling" - and that is a term which is commonly used in the proposed legislation - in practice the situation will be one in which people will stumble on it. And that is the danger. Chairman: We will come back to that in a moment. Lord Walpole will come back to this issue of stimulation. Q252 Lord Walpole: Is the existing policy of unstimulated demand a necessary component of good gambling regulation, or can the Bill succeed in giving the industry more freedom to stimulate demand and also maintain low levels of problem gambling? Professor Orford: I am assuming that we are now into an era where unstimulated demand is a thing of the past. We are into some degree of stimulation in demand. The question, it seems to me is how do we get a balance whereby we do not increase the negative side, as you have said, too much. There are three areas I want to raise. One is something that I suppose would come under the heading of advertising standards. It does seem to me important that in society the gambling industry advertises its products fairly. One of the things I am worried about now, in the light of all that we have said here, is those "amusement with prizes". If the Government is determined that this anomaly should continue of child gambling, I think it should be called as such. I do not think people should be induced to play gaming machines by saying this is not gambling at all, these are actually amusements. I would claim that is actually contrary to advertising standards. Similarly, anything which claims that a form of gambling that is clearly not a matter of skill is actually a matter of skill, would, it seems to me, be against advertising standards. Anything that unfairly promotes gambling I would think should not be correct. The other thing is about undue inducements. I would have thought this is a matter of reputation of the gambling industry. We are told that the gambling industry has a good reputation in this country and has done for a number of years, and I think that is correct, but it does seem to me that if the gambling industry were to follow some of the things that we are told have happened in other countries it would lose that reputation. For example, I understand that in other countries free alcohol is provided in casinos. I would interpret that, and I am sure some other people would interpret that, as getting people intoxicated in order to more easily take money off them. I would have thought a gambling industry would rapidly get a bad reputation if it does that. I would have thought that was undue inducement. The other area to which I would call attention is to do with credit, because inherent in the habitual nature of gambling is the chasing of losses and a lot of people put that central to the idea of developing a problem with gambling. There is the idea of accumulating your winnings and not having your winnings paid to you before you bet again. Psychologically, it seems to me, it is bad and it is encouraging problem gambling to say to somebody, "Do you want your winnings? Or shall I keep them for you to bet again?" I think it is important that people get their winnings back each time, before they then make the choice to bet again. Personally, I think credit cards are dangerous. We live in a society now where credit card debt is a major national problem, so I would have thought allowing people to bet with credit cards was a bad thing. I do not think there should be cash machines anywhere near where you actually gamble: I think you should have to go a distance in order to get fresh cash. I think there should be methods whereby you are given feed-back about the amount you are gambling and you should be able to state a limit at the beginning of gambling and be told whether you are near to exceeding that limit or not. Those are just examples, but there is a whole set of things which I think comes under the area of credit and the way money is transacted in gambling, because all those things are central to the idea of how you develop habitual gambling. Q253 Lord Walpole: Do you think one-armed bandits should have health warnings on them - like a packet of cigarettes? Professor Griffiths: I certainly think people should be informed of what the pay-back rates are on the machine, and it would be a good idea to give them a running total of how much they have spent. I would say about slot-machines and gambling in general that we can all make conscious decisions beforehand about what we are doing to do and that this is our spending limit, but, as a person who plays slot-machines a lot in the name of research, I can tell you now that when you are actually playing on a slot-machine - and I sit here knowing all the probabilities, I know all about them - when I am in mid-action playing a slot-machine, all of that goes totally out of the window. You are totally in action, basically adrenaline is running round your body, and all those rational decisions you make are completely gone when you are actually in the gambling situation. A lot of problem gamblers will say that when they are in the gambling situation there are in a dissociated state: they do not actually feel they are the body they were. I have done it myself. I am not a problem gambler at all, but I know for a fact that I can feel out of myself and feel totally in escape mode when I am engaged in a particular form of gambling. That is the problem, even when you educate people - and I would like to think I am an educated person. It is like being under the influence of alcohol: when I have had a few drinks, I know what the effects are but my behaviour may be totally different and irrational when I am under the influence. Q254 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Could I ask Professor Orford to add to his list of possible ways of breaking addictions on machines. In Australia, particularly in Victoria, smoking is now prohibited in the poker arcades for two reasons. One is obviously for public health reasons and the other is because it is seen as a way of interrupting the addiction. Would you see that as a useful measure to be adopted? Professor Orford: To ban smoking? Q255 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: At the machines. Professor Orford: The argument for that I have not quite understood. Q256 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: If you need another cigarette, you will stop. Professor Orford: It creates a break. It would not be my number one factor. I can see the logic of that, but it does not seem the most obvious thing to do. Professor Griffiths: I think you will find that people who really want to smoke more than they want to play will obviously stay out and smoke rather than play. We know for a fact that in Las Vegas people who drink a lot, for instance, will not drink a lot, because it will make them go to the toilet. They will either drink very short drinks so they do not have to go to the toilet so often, or if they get the urge they will urinate where they are on the seat. It is a common thing in Las Vegas casinos to find under the chairs big pools of urine from those people who are so into their gambling. My guess is that most people are not going to put themselves in that situation, so I agree with Jim, really, that the idea of the smoking link is not necessarily a good one. Dr Moran: I think more significant is the presence of alcohol. Alcohol impairs judgment. It clearly increases impulsivity. Therefore, the association between gambling and alcohol is, I think, a very hazardous one. Q257 Lord Mancroft: One of the features of the Government's policy which at least will limit negative social problems - and we have talked about this before but I would like to come back to it again - is that they believe destination gambling is better than casual gambling: the fact that gambling is in one place and people have to go there to do it will lessen the negative impacts. Do you think that is right? We have talked about conscious decisions and there would need to be a conscious decision to go to Blackpool or wherever it may be to do it. Is that a factor? Professor Griffiths: The problem is that a whole load of things are going on at once. If you are going to have destination resorts but also then increase the amount that people can gamble on the internet through interactive television or on their mobile phones, it makes the idea of destination gambling somewhat redundant anyway. My guess is that for 99 per cent of the people who go to a destination to gamble, like myself when I go to Las Vegas or wherever, it is because I think I am going to have a fun time. I do not go there to win money. If I win, that is a bonus. When I go to my local casino in Nottingham, I go there to have a meal, be with friends, have a talk or whatever and the gambling is incidental. My guess is that for most people who go to destination resorts that would be their aim, just to have a fun time out. Yes, they may win some, they may lose some, but the point is that this is not being done in isolation. Basically de-regulation is occurring in lots of different areas and we now have lots or remote forms of gambling that people can do. If I wanted to, I could probably link up with the internet and sit outside in this corridor and through my mobile phone gamble if I want to. It makes the idea of a destination resort somewhat redundant really. If this was the only thing that was happening, then you might see it as a good thing, but the point is that de-regulation is going on in lots of different spheres and not just in this one aspect. Q258 Chairman: This is an important point. One of the things you have just said - and forgive me if I have it wrong - is that if people go to a destination resort to enjoy the fun of gambling, that is why people would go. If you simply want to gamble, you do not need to go there at all. Professor Griffiths: Yes. Q259 Chairman: There is a very clear difference between the two forms. Professor Griffiths: I am sure there is for some people. But it was also my argument, as I was saying before, that you get those people who just want to go for the fun element, but when they get there and they are in gambling mode then irrationality can creep in as well. Thankfully, for most people it is not going to be something they are going to lose control of. I love going in big casinos around the world - I am sure most people do - I am not anti them at all, but where you introduce lots of big casinos everywhere you will increase the amount of gambling. Dr Moran: In the whole notion of destination gambling, I think in a very similar way throughout this whole business of this new legislation, there is an awful lot of confusion. The words "destination gambling" can be used in more than one way. If I decide to go to a betting shop, that is destination gambling. The Government at times uses it in that way and at other times it talks about destination gambling in terms of going to a future Blackpool, which is really going to be the English version of Las Vegas. These two are totally different ideas. Q260 Lord Mancroft: But there is a clear difference between both of those activities and ambient gambling, walking past a machine that happens to be in a pub or in a fish and chip shop and suddenly having the urge to play the machine. You did not go there to pay the machine, you went there to buy fish and chips, but you actually ended up gambling on the machine. If you go to a betting shop, you go to have a bet and not for any other reason. Dr Moran: That is the main reason why it is vital that gambling facilities should be restricted to licensed premises, so that you have to go. The whole notion of one-armed bandits in non-licenses areas is dubious. It is infringing the basic principle, because it ignores this element of habit formation to which we have referred before. The idea of destination gambling in terms of places such as resort casinos like Las Vegas, undoubtedly has overtones which are very deep. Professor Griffiths: The backdrop to this is that the whole culture of gambling over the last 50 years has changed from, if you like a destination model - whether you call it a betting shop or Blackpool - through to one that I would call convenience gambling. We have seen gambling come out of legitimate gambling environments into supermarkets, through lottery tickets, et cetera, into cinema foyers, with slot-machines or whatever, now into the home and the workplace, through the internet, mobile phones, interactive television. This is the anomaly you have. Saying we are only going to have gambling in licensed premises is one thing; but then we are introducing all these other forms where we have real concerns because there is no gatekeeper access. How do I stop my son, if I set up a television betting account, doing it when I am not there? How do I stop a teenager on a mobile phone reacting to a lottery text message they receive? These are very hard things to do. This is the culture. Everything has been made convenient now. People who want to gamble will gamble instantly and get the result instantly. That is why things like the National Lottery on a weekly level will probably die out and people will go for the more fast-action instant games because that is the culture in which we live now. Professor Orford: I think there is a real danger that what the Government is doing is saying we should have liberalisation of certain thins which have not been so liberal in the past but at the same time we must not close down any of the things that we have had in the past, so inevitably the range of convenience, the range of gambling products, grows and grows and grows. So there is a great deal of inconsistency here. The Budd report said very clearly that the principle of ambient gambling was very important, that there should not be ambient gambling. The Government is talking about destination gambling but at the same time, I understand, is suggesting that there should continue to be the lower stake, lower prize machines in places like station buffets, motorway services, takeaways and so on. A station buffet is not a gambling destination. It does not seem to me you can have it both ways really. If it is important to confine gambling to destinations, then I do not think we should also allow people to walk past machines in a station buffet. It is very confusing. My observation of station buffets is it is very, very confusing to people what type of machine it is, whether a child can play on it or not, who is in charge of it, who is supervising it - very, very confusing. Q261 Viscount Falkland: Could I pick up on a point the Chairman made in relation to destination gambling. We went yesterday to GamCare, where one of those who is under treatment said that it was extraordinary to him - and it was certainly extraordinary to me , and I do not know whether it is to other colleagues - that the Government should have made an arrangement with bookmaking groups now, so that in betting shops you have fixed odds betting terminals. That means that now, according to the evidence of a problem gambler, there are increasing numbers of people going to betting shops (that is, destination gambling) who are not going there to bet on horses at all: they are not slightly interested in horses, they are interested in the new machines the Government has now allowed them to install. Do you have any comment about that? Professor Orford: As my colleagues have said it is complicated, it is not just a question of the destination, it is a question of the mix of gambling products in that destination. It looks as if the proposals will lead to a much greater mix of things in the one place. I have only just recently learned about these fixed law machines in betting offices and I believe there is a suggestion they may be against the current law, so it perhaps being challenged anyway. That is a very good example of the increasing diversity of forms of gambling in one place, if you go in with an interest in one form of gambling you may well be attracted to another form of gambling. One of the findings of the British Gambling Prevalence Study was that there was a strong correlation between problem gambling and the number of forms of gambling which you had engaged in in the last year, so we are talking about multiple interest gamblers, which are people who have gambled with four different types of gambling in the last year. Destination can offer a range of products but I would expect it would increase the number of multiple interest gamblers in society and therefore it would be expected to increase the number of problem gamblers. Chairman: Perhaps we can now move on and talk about unlimited prize gaming machines. Q262 Mr Page: In our recommendations we are going to have to try and anticipate future trends and problems, we did visit GamCare yesterday and they produced various statistics of the use of the primary mode of client gambling, they mentioned off and on course betting at 35% and the second are fruit machines at 28%. What I would like to know, and it has been put to us in written evidence, is do you feel that the introduction of gaming machines with unlimited prizes is going to be the biggest area of future problem gambling? What trends do you see are going to take place in problem gambling the way the legislation is currently drafted? Professor Griffiths: I certainly think that the issue of unlimited jackpot prizes is what I call a structural characteristic, it is something that is predetermined, it is something that the manufacturer or operator puts into their product which attracts people to play in the first place. We know that if the Lottery only offered a £100,000 jackpot a week you would not get anywhere near as many people playing as if there was a £3 million jackpot, and we all know on a rollover week people play more because of the huge jackpot prizes. Obviously jackpot prizes are just one of a whole range of what we call structural characteristics. We talked a lot this morning about accessibility to an activity and event frequency, how often you can do something in a given time period. Obviously things like stake size, jackpot size, if you are on a slot machine the number of near‑misses in a particular time period are all things that can be manipulated by the people who make the products. We know for a fact that slot machines even on very small jackpot prizes, even a £15 jackpot prize, can still be very addictive to some people. By introducing an acquisitional factor to get people gambling in the first place a huge jackpot prize is going to be something that is very, very reinforcing to people. The interesting thing about playing a slot machine is that you have an unlimited prize, if you are losing lots and lots of money there is always a chance on the next go you can completely recoup your loses. The thing about unlimited jackpot prizes are is that it will facilitate chasing. We have already mentioned chasing loses this morning, one of the biggest risk factors in problem gambling is chasing loses. Those people who consistently chase loses are the ones that tend to get into problems. Q263 Mr Page: In short you feel unlimited jackpot prizes for slot machines will be the biggest cause of future gambling? Professor Griffiths: It will certainly be a big cause. I am not saying it is going to be the single biggest cause but it is certainly one structural characteristic which will have a huge impact on people both playing it in the first place and ‑‑‑ Q264 Mr Page: We can see that, we are trying to identify areas, so there could be other areas that will have an even greater impact? Professor Griffiths: For instance I think the speed of the machine's mechanism. On the internet some of the slot machines' reels spin every second, so theoretically people can play thirty or forty times a minute on a slot machine on the internet and the capacity to lose money in a given time period is greater. Q265 Mr Page: I think you are saying yes. Professor Griffiths: I am saying yes. There is an interesting thing which one of my colleagues at Nottingham Trent pointed out to me, one of the interesting things about the unlimited jackpot size and one of the things he thinks is going to happen ‑ and now I have thought about it I probably agree with him ‑ is that adolescents who basically drop out of playing slot machines when they get to 15 or 16 because they realise the jackpot sizes are incontestably small compared with other forms of gambling are more likely to carry on playing for these huge unlimited prizes. I do think this is an important factor, this may be one factor that where adolescence may have dropped out previously the unlimited jackpot prize might be something that will keep them carrying on playing as they have been doing for a number of years on smaller sized jackpot machines anyway. Dr Moran: As Professor Griffiths has indicated I think one-armed bandits are dangerous and the unlimited prize makes them even more dangerous. We are in an area of developing technology here and things like interactive television has hardly taken off and there are all sorts of things in the wings which could be even worse than this if it is not very carefully thought out before it is allowed to be implemented. Chairman: Thank you for that. Q266 Lord Wade of Chorlton: How hopeful are you about the ability of the new Gambling Commission to protect the young and vulnerable? If it does not also regulate the National Lottery and spread betting what impact would this have on the Commission's ability to minimise the negative social effects of gambling? Professor Griffiths: This is one thing which I have gone on record a number of times over the last few years saying there should be one regulatory body which oversees all forms of gambling. I think it is a real anomaly that you have a situation where spread betting is overseen by one department, the National Lottery and scratch cards by another and all forms by a third department, that really does not indicate to me any kind of joined‑up thinking. Even though these are all very different forms of gambling, and I think that is the real issue here, and for me as a psychologist the psychology of lottery playing is very different from the psychology of slot machine playing, which is very different from the psychology of spread betting but they are all forms of gambling and it really does need one department to oversee all of these things in a joined‑up and integrated form. There is no point in having very strict regulations surrounding 80% of activities and a loophole that allows all spread betting to be overseen by something else. Professor Orford: I would agree with that. The particular reason why I agree with it is that it does seem to me at a time when gambling is likely to increase it is really important that the public know what gambling is. One of the reasons for the change in the regulation in Britain is the confusion that there has been about things in the past. There was confusion about the National Lottery when it started off, there were a number of powers that be who suggested that the National Lottery was not real gambling, and well I think we all now know that it is. Q267 Chairman: The Minister has now said that it is gambling to Lord Faulkner. Professor Orford: I am glad. It seems to me inherent in all of this argument is the potential confusion for the public. It seems to me terribly important as a parent not to confuse parents but rather to reduce confusion for everybody. Let us have one body that governs what everybody is clear is gambling. Dr Moran: I agree with what has been said. I would just add that gambling is a highly technical area where you can achieve quite a lot of expertise and those who have not worked in that area are often not fully aware of the subtleties of all of it. The experience of the Gaming Board indicate it is absolutely vital that if you have a form of gambling which is supervised by a statutory body that it should be responsible for all aspects of that gambling activity and therefore I would agree that it is very anomalous that the FSA should deal with spread betting and the National Lottery Commission should deal with the National Lottery. All forms of gambling ought to be put into the responsibility of the Gambling Commission. Q268 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Could you comment on the first part of question and whether you consider the ability of the Gambling Commission to be able to protect the young and vulnerable, are you hopeful? Professor Griffiths: You use the words "how hopeful?" I am very hopeful they will. Q269 Chairman: Are you optimistic? Professor Griffiths: I do think that with bodies like this and with lots of expertise round I am hopeful. I think we all know what the vulnerable populations are. I am sure the Gambling Commission are aware as well. Obviously it depends on what legislation comes in and where the potential loopholes are. Professor Orford: I am hopeful rather than optimistic. My impression is, and you may think this is totally unfair, that the relationship between the Gaming Board and the gambling industry was somewhat cosy. I would have thought if the new Gambling Commission has teeth and is properly independent then, yes, I would be hopeful. Dr Moran: One would hope so. One is hopeful but not optimistic. A lot will depend on the resources of this Gambling Commission. We must remember that this Commission is going to supervise and regulate an industry which is very rich and which has a history of being able to bypass the regulations in a variety of ways. One hopes that the Commission will be properly funded and will have the resources to deal with this situation. Q270 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Those answers do indicate to me that although in the first part of the session you identify all of particular problems that you think may arise in fact you are suggesting that there will be methods with the right Gambling Commission in power to be able to reduce them to a minimum possibility. I am judging that is what you mean by your answer; clearly if you are hopeful you can do it it is possible to do it? Dr Moran: The Gambling Commission is very crucial to the whole exercise if you have the right commission. A lot of the stuff in terms of detail is yet to be worked out by the Gambling Commission, so it is really crucial how they are set up, the resources they are given and how they are going to operate. Q271 Lord Donoughue of Aston: If I can ask about research, much of what we say is based on the quality of the research that we have and the Minister has said to us before that he is prepared to contemplate certain actions he needs research. We have received various suggestions of areas into which research might be conducted funded by the GICT, such as a revised Prevalence Study, which was already mentioned, alcohol consumption and gambling, and so forth. What research do you think, funded by the GICT, should be prioritised? Secondly, is there any specific research which we really need before the Act is implemented? Professor Orford: I have listed four areas, one is about public opinion, and I have rather gained the view round all of this is that the public has not been asked very much what it thinks. I have seen this report in the press of an NOP survey recently, I do not know how good that was because I have not seen it. If that has been good, fine, it has been done. It seems to me one of the gaps is what the British people want the future of gambling to be in Britain. We know what the gambling industry wants, we know what the Government wants, we know what some experts are saying but I do not think we know very much about what the British people want, that is the first thing, and I would have thought that is fairly urgent. The second thing I would have thought was comparatively urgent is because so much has been said about the value of casino resorts for regeneration it would be important to do some research soon to set a baseline within at least one area where it is hoped there will be regeneration as a result. There was a very good piece of research in Niagara Falls before and after there was a casino developed in Niagara Falls for exactly the same reason that Blackpool is arguing that it should be a resort destination. Niagara Falls needed regeneration and there was a very good before and after study. If we really are to find out whether Blackpool actually gains we need to do some baseline research now to find out what local opinion is, what the state of the local tourist industry is, if that is going to be affected. I would have thought that would be a priority. Two other areas which I think are very important but not such immediate priorities, one is this business of what makes for particularly dangerous forms of gambling. We all have ideas about why, for example, the unlimited stakes might be a particularly dangerous form of gambling but we need more research on exactly what it is about the more dangerous forms of gambling that makes them more dangerous. The fourth thing is treatment trials, trials of treatment for gambling. Professor Griffiths: I came with a list and it is amazing how similar my list is to Jim's. The one thing I would add to that is that what we should look at is both protective and risk factors for people who gamble. A vast majority of people gamble without problems so what is it that is inherent in them that stops them from becoming problem gamblers? Variable research has been done on, if you like, normal gamblers so there certainly should be more research done on the everyday social gambler to look at the protective factors. There should also be more research done on risk factors, particularly in terms of gambling activity. This Committee almost makes the assumption that gambling is a homogenous activity, and it is not. I know as a psychologist that the psychological risk factors involved in slot machine playing are totally different from Lottery playing and totally different from horse race gambling, depending on the amount of skill involved or the event frequency of the activity, based on a whole load of factors. It goes back to Jim's point here, looking at research on individual types of activity is very important. Dr Moran: I would agree with my colleagues, particularly professor Orford's point, I think that is very valid and I think those are areas where there should be further work done. I think what worries one as a doctor is that it is essential that in focusing on what can be counted that its causes us to overlook what is important. There is a tremendous preoccupation with doing surveys and prevalence studies and counting and producing figures, you know there is something that used to be referred to as common sense. The point really is the more you have of anything the more there are going to be people who misuse it. The public policy needs to be based on evidence, and I am not arguing against that. I think there are aspects of the draft Gambling Bill which really are blatantly against common sense in the way we discussed earlier. Q272 Lord Donoughue of Aston: On the areas that you suggested, some of them are specific, are there any continuing areas of core research that you think the Department and DCMS should take on because they are fundamental core areas amongst the ones you have suggested? Professor Griffiths: I do see the utility having a Prevalence Study once every five years but I have to agree with Dr Moran that doing survey after survey of basic a‑theoretical work does not bring us forward in terms of understanding the disorder of problem gambling. There are lots of theories with very little data to support a lot of these theories. We need to do lots more qualitative work. We talk about doing great big surveys on number crunching, but if you spend an hour with one problem gambler you will learn more about problem gambling than you do from reading ‑ that is not to put Jim's Prevalence Survey to one side. Reading a whole list of numbers does not put in into reality, you learn far more by doing in-depth research and underlying theories. Professor Orford: I agree. I think a repeated Prevalence Study is important but I think it sounds as if we all agreed that alongside Prevalence Studies we do need more detailed work of two kinds, one is more detailed work on areas of gambling that we have come to be particularly concerned about like remote or internet gambling, that might be something that we are particularly concerned about, and something about the particular causes of gambling. Q273 Chairman: You did say in answer to an earlier question that you regarded all this really as a public health issue, which seems to me to beg the answer, let alone the question, that the Department of Health should take an interest in researching? Professor Orford: I am so glad you have brought that up because I have that written down here. One of the things that has somewhat surprised me and disappointed me is the apparent lack of the Department of Health in all of these discussions. It used to be the Home Office that took the lead and it is now the DCMS that takes the lead, it is a public health issue and in my view the Department of Health ought to be a lot more involved than they are. Chairman: On that happy note I will terminate this part of our evidence. If there are things that we have not quite covered you could do so in writing. Can I thank you all very much for your time and for the very helpful answers that you have given to us. Thank you very much.
Memoranda submitted by Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs, the Evangelical Alliance, Guildford Churches, the Methodist Church and the Salvation Army
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Ms Helena Chambers, Director of Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs (QAAD), Ms Jennifer Hogg, Member and Representative, Evangelical Alliance and Guildford Churches, Ms Rachel Lampard, Secretary, Parliamentary and Political Affairs, Methodist Church, and Mr Jonathan Lomax, Public Affairs Officer, Salvation Army, examined.
Q274 Chairman: We now welcome our next group of witnesses. It is probably best if I take them in order from left to right, so we have Jennifer Hogg from the Evangelical Alliance, Helena Chambers, who is the Director of Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs, Rachel Lampard, who is the secretary for parliamentary and political affairs to the Methodist Church, and Jonathan Lomax, the public affairs officer for the Salvation Army. I understand that as we have given you notice of the questions we would like to ask you, you have tried to divide up who will give the answers and that is extremely helpful, but, Rachel, I wondered whether also at the beginning you might just like to clarify the various organisations that you represent as well as the Methodist Church. Ms Lampard: Certainly. Obviously Jonathan is speaking on behalf of the Salvation Army and Helena on behalf of Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs. Jennifer is speaking on behalf of the Evangelical Alliance as a member of the Evangelical Alliance, but is coming from the Guildford Churches. I am speaking on behalf of the Methodist Church, but, as you will have seen in our submission, it was supported by a range of other denominations, including Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, the Baptist Union of Great Britain, the Salvation Army, the United Reform Church and also the relevant part of the Church of England. Q275 Chairman: Thank you very much. Can I begin by asking you this: in its policy document, the Government has said that in the development of casinos, it "does not wish to revive any moral objection to gambling". Are there any moral objections that the Government should be aware of and that should inform its and the Commission's policy? Ms Lampard: By answering on behalf of the group, perhaps I can begin by thanking the Committee for asking us to join you today. It is probably most helpful if I widen the response just beyond casinos to talk about gambling in general. The Committee will be aware that there are a variety of personal beliefs and personal practices within our churches towards gambling. Some of our members gamble and a lot do not for what they would see as moral and ethical concerns, but none of the churches involved here is advocating anything approaching a prohibitionist approach to the Gambling Bill. What we are concerned about is effective regulation which is going to be able to minimise the harm that gambling can cause to some groups of people. I think what drives us in what we are doing is a passion for our communities that we live and work in, so we are concerned about the impact that the legislation might have on those communities and individuals within them. I think coming from that, therefore, the moral question for us is that if you say to us that the cost of deregulation is going to be an increase in people who have a problem with gambling, that for us is unacceptable and that is a moral issue, so from that we are particularly concerned with a number of areas, and this has true consensus across the churches. They are: the proliferation of high-value machines, which we heard about this morning; the impact of gambling on children and adolescents; the need for social responsibility as a concept and a practice to be embedded in the Bill itself; the need for local communities to be involved in the changes that are going on here, and; finally, for the whole process to proceed cautiously, accompanied by the kind of research that we heard talked about in the first session. I am sure we will explore these in later sessions, but we are trying to put the moral approach to gambling, as it might be termed, in a broader context here. Q276 Chairman: That is very helpful for you to clarify that you are not taking a prohibitionist approach and that the structure of regulation in the future is clearly the issue, but the Commission has two objectives which may appear to be in conflict and I wonder whether you think they are. On the one hand, it is clearly there to oversee the deregulation of gambling, but, on the other hand, it has the job of preventing the potentially negative consequences of gambling. Do you feel that in some way is incompatible and, if you do, building on what you have just said, what is your advice as to how this should be structured? Ms Chambers: First of all, there are some aspects that we would welcome where there is some compatibility between the policies that are being advanced and particularly, for example, in the area of Internet gambling, the proposal to regulate that, if it is done thoroughly and carefully, we think will be an advance. However, I think it is correct to identify that there is some potential conflict at least between the two aims and the reason that we say this is, as you have heard elaborated earlier this morning, that on the basis of the empirical evidence, if there is any increase in gambling activity, then there is also likely to be an increase in problem activity and that is an inescapable difficulty, I think. Now, some reasons for that relationship I think are not understood, as was also outlined, or not perfectly understood, but there are some areas where the evidence is clear about the factors that give rise to problem gambling, so we feel very much that if gambling opportunities are to be increased, then these need to be addressed in order to reduce the likelihood of problem gambling. If I can concentrate on three of those points, which again have been elaborated, so I will not go into detail on them, the first is that we know that there are certain features of certain types of machines, particularly slot machines, but also other forms of gambling, and particularly the Category A machines, which are likely to cause problem play and a higher incidence of problem play. The second is the exposure of children to gambling for the Category D machines. We know that children have higher levels of problem play and that the earlier they begin to play, the more it becomes apparent, and we also know that alcohol can exacerbate problem play, so in those areas where there is good evidence for an association of increased levels of problem play with those particular features, we would be looking to a more stringent and gradual approach to changes in those areas and to those changes being gradually introduced, very thoroughly monitored and only increased if the evidence is that there is no increase in problem play. Q277 Chairman: Is it your view that there will be an increase in problem gambling, and you may have heard our comments earlier about the definition of what is problem gambling, and that there will be an increase greater than the volume of the increase in gambling activity or is it simply that the increase will arise simply because more people will gamble? Ms Lampard: I think it is quite possible that the increase will be disproportionate if we are moving towards things like the high-value slot machines, which, as I think was said earlier, have been shown to particularly cause problem gambling in other jurisdictions. I think if we are kind of moving in that direction, the rise could be disproportionate. However, as we will perhaps come on to later, the whole question of introducing the concept of social responsibility within business practices within the gambling industry, if the Gambling Commission is able to get the Code right, it is possible that we may be able to have an increase in gambling without a similar rise in problem gambling, but that is absolutely crucial and, to reiterate, we believe that it is unacceptable for there to be an increase in problem gambling. Q278 Mr Page: Professor Orford, in the last session, said words to the effect that there had been no real study into the demand for any increased gambling activity. We have seen that the Salvation Army produced a figure that 93 per cent of the public have no desire for any further gambling activity. Have the churches in any other way carried out any other surveys to buttress that 93 per cent figure or to disprove it? When you then follow on from that in your reply, I would be very grateful if you could just let us know whether you think that there should be any form of controlled deregulation of the gaming activity at all? Mr Lomax: Perhaps unsurprisingly I have been asked to speak to this on behalf of the Salvation Army and the other churches. I would have to say that that is the only piece of public opinion research that we, as the Salvation Army and, as far as I am aware, the churches, have conducted on this. As far as I am aware, I have seen no other public opinion research in the last few months certainly on this issue, so I am sure there is scope there for more. On the second part of the question of whether deregulation should go ahead even though there seems to be no or little demand for it, I think the first thing that we would say is that we accept that there needs to be change in the legislation because we are talking about very old and outdated legislation and we are very happy with some of the things in the Bill, so we would not want to see the Bill fall, and that is not our intention to come here and ask for that. We, in all of our submissions, wholeheartedly support the Government's position of wanting to protect children and vulnerable people and that is why we are here, to try and ensure that that happens. However, it does have to be said that the decision to deregulate is the Government's and there is no demonstrable public demand for it until somebody can show some demand, which seems slightly problematic and incredibly risky in one sense because we are deregulating potentially in an area that could cause people some serious harm in their lives and the wider family sphere as well. If we see that in a few years' time that has been the case when there was no public demand for it in the first instance, then I think that could be very problematic. As was mentioned earlier, I think, by Dr Moran, we are particularly concerned about this issue of stimulating demand and one of the things this poll shows is that at present there is little active demand on the public's part for a dramatic increase in gambling opportunities, but quite the opposite, so if the deregulation goes ahead as proposed, we fear that there will be a real need on the part of the gambling industry to try and stimulate that demand through aggressive marketing techniques and some of the things that were mentioned earlier and we would be incredibly concerned about that. To sum up, we agree that there needs to be modernisation of the legislation, but we are concerned that the modernisation is being caught up with almost total liberalisation or very quick liberalisation and we do not believe those two things necessarily have to go together. If the Government is going to press ahead with deregulation, which it seems it wants to quite strongly, then let's make it smart deregulation that protects those vulnerable people we are all concerned about because we are concerned that once it has started, despite the Government's assurances, it might be difficult to go back. Q279 Lord Walpole: I think again this is for the Methodist Church. What impact would you expect an increase in problem gambling to have on other public services, such as the NHS and the police? Ms Lampard: Perhaps I could refer that to Helena Chambers because the point deals with a number of addictions, so it is a relevant question for her. Ms Chambers: I think the first thing to comment on in this regard is that some of the increased impact on public services may not present most obviously as a gambling problem, and we know this from our experience in other problems of dependency. For example, from the information that you probably also have from GamCare, if you look at their counselling information, there are health problems associated with problem gambling and 41 per cent of the people that they surveyed reported, say, sleep disruption, stomach problems and teeth problems, so they may present to primary care facilities with another presenting problem, of which this is an underlying factor. Similarly, that might be the case with psychological distress and only 3 per cent of those they dealt with experienced no psychological symptoms, which ranged from mood swings and anxieties to much more serious conditions. In a similar way, things might come to the attention of education services through truancy which might be an underlying problem, and to various support agencies in the community, and I think we are all working in different ways in our communities, through marital stress and family problems and to social services departments through neglect, family breakdown, and to criminal justice agencies through offending, so in all those areas it may not be the presenting problem, but the exacerbating problem. In those jurisdictions where gambling has been deregulated, one of the needs that their research has pointed to is for primary care workers to learn screening techniques for at-risk groups, so that would be another cost, if you like, in terms of training and the development of such procedures in primary healthcare services and these other services. Then when you get to the more obvious end when perhaps the problem is clearly recognisable and identifiable, that may be a straight gambling dependency problem or it may be associated with other problems, such as substance misuse or psychiatric criminal activity where we know there is an increased incidence of these problems with such groups, then we get into the area, which I think has been brought to your attention before, that there is a paucity of provision certainly in the NHS for support of such problems which often require quite skilled and medium-term intervention. One of the things that I think we have all brought to your attention in our submissions is our concern at the relatively small amount of money that is being raised for the Gambling Commission and our feeling that much, much more will be needed and also that much more will be needed through statutory agencies, so yes, potentially the problem is large and I think Jenny wants to go into that. Ms Hogg: I am going to answer in respect of the police and just to confirm that I am a member of the Evangelical Alliance, but I do come with grassroots experience because Guildford has received four casino planning applications so far, so we have looked at this and it does concentrate the mind. Our experience is that when it comes to the police, they have a statutory duty to comment on community safety issues, and this is not actual crime, but fear of crime, and their concern will be primarily in those areas, so it all depends on where the casino is. If a casino is, as is the case in Guildford, planned to be located in our hotspot for violence and public disorder where nightclubs and pubs are already, then the police would be very concerned about the energetically opposed, massive nine-floor casino in that area because they would be concerned about expansion of binge-drinking problems and all that that brings and the fear of crime because some people are already finding that area a no-go area. We are very concerned as churches with the ripple effect that problem gambling will have not just in association with alcohol in the streets, but in the families and people around. We have had statistics that one problem gambler can affect up to ten people in the immediate family, we have also had an American statistic of 17 and this is something that exercises us very much as churches which are used to picking up the social strain. Q280 Jeff Ennis: What are the risks of blurring the boundaries between "soft" and "hard" forms of gambling which certain people have given us evidence to the effect that it will be a possible outcome of the current proposals? Mr Lomax: Currently public policy does recognise obviously differences between different types of gambling and their potential dangers, particularly with regard to casinos, and public policy recognises that by requiring a membership arrangement with the casino and a 24-hour kind of cooling-off period, if you like, between going to the casino and being allowed to play. We see the removal of this as quite a significant blurring, if you like, because you are taking out of public policy that distinction between games in a casino which, statistics seem to show, are slightly more dangerous in terms of problem gambling and making it in effect not that much more difficult to play than buying a National Lottery ticket, so that blurring, I think, is happening there. Also, as we have heard this morning, some of the Government's definitions of "soft" and "hard", we would have issue with. I think the most obvious of those, and I will not go into detail because we did earlier on in the Committee, was children and Category D machines. I have to say again that every member of this panel believes that Category D machines should not be available for play to children and we believe that that distinction that the Government have made and, if I may say, the changed designation of what they are called is actually completely arbitrary and, as the learned academics this morning showed, there is no evidence really to show that. Also as was mentioned, in the survey that we have had done, 82 per cent of the population said that they did not think that children under the age of 18 should play fruit machines. This can also be seen in the modelling aspect that we heard of earlier with the mix of the family entertainment centres and perhaps the feeling that if children see adults behaving responsibly or not, then at least there is that kind of socialisation aspect there, but, as was pointed out I think again this morning, there is no evidence really to show that that does halt problem gambling in the future and in fact if they are being shown poor examples, that can be quite a negative thing. Q281 Jeff Ennis: So you would like to see the complete banning of any new machines, including the ones which currently exist, say, in amusement arcades at resorts? Ms Lampard: Yes, we do not think they are appropriate for children under the age of 18. Q282 Jeff Ennis: What about the type of facility you get at a motorway service station where it says that only the over-18s can go in this area or whatever, which is an incidental type of business to the core business of that particular facility? Ms Lampard: On the whole question of kind of ambient gambling or incidental gambling, our major concerns would not be so much with the motorway service station-type approach as the chip shop taxi rank kind of approach where we have spoken already about the Category D. It is very important that if you can keep your gambling under control, it is a conscious decision and you know how much you can afford to lose, then if you gamble incidentally, that is far less likely to happen. The particular concern also with the chip shop model is that it is very unsupervised. You are only going to need a machine permit, so there is not going to be the same degree of regulation and licensing, and there is a question there of whether any type of social responsibility is going to be involved as well. The second area, I think, where we would have concerns is around pubs and clubs which you may well have already heard about. You have visited GamCare already, so you will have seen their statistics, but their statistics for last year showed that the number of fruit machine gamblers who did the majority of their gambling in pubs and clubs rose from under 20 per cent to over 30 per cent in one year who were problem gamblers, and there is a real concern about the mixing of alcohol and gambling in that the more you drink, the less likely you are to gamble wisely. There are also going to be problems about children in pubs and clubs where those kind of machines are available and the stress that it puts on the staff having to enforce the law and ensure that children do not have access to them. I think that the chip shop model and the pubs and clubs are our two main concerns in terms of gambling. Q283 Jeff Ennis: So you are not as concerned about the motorway service stations' over-18 type of scenario? Ms Lampard: I do not think we are as concerned, but obviously ---- Q284 Jeff Ennis: So you would not want to ban them? Ms Lampard: Well, speaking personally because this is not something we have discussed as a group here, I think that gambling should be in places where people go to expect to gamble. Mr Lomax: There is also an issue of supervision. We have all been to motorway service stations and those barriers are not controlled by an adult checking on anybody's age, so there is an issue of supervision there, I think. Ms Chambers: If I can add a further point, my background is in the treatment of problem dependent behaviours and another factor here which fits in very neatly with this destination gambling idea is that the people who have suffered from a dependency issue, one of the things is triggers that can trigger that behaviour occurring again and people learn rehearsed techniques for preparing for these scenarios and dealing with them. Whereas one cannot control 100 per cent every environment, it is nonetheless true to say that in these areas where you may not expect to find these things, but do find them, that is not a particularly helpful model, particularly if it is going to bring more gambling into areas which you are also having to avoid. Q285 Chairman: Dr Sue Fischer has said that, "controlling one's response to gambling requires certain life skills which are likely to be under-developed in children and young people". Now, can you tell us what these life skills are and what protection should be offered to protect those without them? Ms Lampard: I think we are all absolutely delighted to hear the reiteration by the Government that gambling is an adult activity. That is something we absolutely agree with. It is not aimed at children and we are glad to see that the legislation provides some provision for this. I think the life skills are about how you stay in control, how you keep the ability to be almost slightly detached, not to overreact to the winnings and the losings. I think Mark spoke very openly this morning about how the gambling experience, the gambling episode can overtake even an adult who is used to this kind of thing. Now, the impact that that would have on a child of eight, nine, ten or eleven, you can really imagine that. That is not to say that these things come automatically with adulthood, but the kind of life skills and life experiences are more likely to be accrued over time. We have already spoken about our concerns about access to Category D machines and I think that that would be our kind of primary response, that children do not have the degree of emotional maturity to deal with the emotions that gambling can throw up and it is clear from the Salvation Army poll that the majority of the population seems to agree with that point of view. I would say that if the Committee or the Government are not willing to look at these machines, then we really need to get the research that will show whether there is the damage that we fear there is to children from playing on fruit machines and be willing to take the difficult decisions a few years down the line if this is shown to be true. Also, as a kind of secondary point, I would raise the issue of children's access to other forms of gambling, where even if they cannot play it, they can be there. They are still going to be allowed into bingo halls, for example, and pubs and clubs. There is also the question of the advertising or the inducement of children to gamble which appears in the draft legislation. We have all had more spam e-mails, I think, than we would probably care to remember, but the number of those which will come from gambling sites, for example, and spam messages over your mobile phone, it is not acceptable for those to be sent to children without any effort being made by the companies to find out who owns the number or who owns the e-mail address. Q286 Chairman: Do you think it is feasible or appropriate to integrate education about gambling and its dangers into the education which schools give to the young in respect of sex and alcohol? Ms Lampard: I think it is important to say that education is not the same as life skills. We are actually talking about two very different things here and I think we would also recognise that school curricula are already quite over-loaded in terms of the demands being made upon them in terms of citizenship and personal and social welfare, valuable as these things are. Having said that, there are resources that are already available. There is one produced by GamCare called A Certain Debt which is aimed at 12 to 15-year-olds and which tries to look at increasing the awareness of what gambling is, the dangers of uncontrolled gambling, and also what it means to gamble responsibly if you do decide to gamble, to decide how much you want to lose and to look at gambling as a leisure activity rather than as a way of investing money and it should never take up a significant amount of your time. Trying to get those lessons across to children and young people would be very valuable, and also teaching statistics within schools, learning that if you have had heads rather than tails nine times out of ten, then on the tenth time, it is still just as likely to be heads. Q287 Chairman: A very good analogy! Ms Chambers: Here I would just say that I think we are all involved in working with young people in one way or another in our own communities and in my case anyway with regard to drugs and alcohol as well as gambling. We follow with great interest evidence about the effects and the outcomes of education-based initiatives on these areas. Although there is some very positive work being done, and we are all engaged in it, we do believe that there is some benefit in doing so and it has to be said that the evidence about prevention programmes in schools, for example, is critical, to say the least, so this is something where the field as a whole, I think, would not claim to have the skills to effectively prevent it and I think this is something for education and that needs to be recognised in terms of the balance of measures that are being introduced. Q288 Viscount Falkland: There is evidence that those on lower incomes spend more in proportion to their means on gambling than those on higher incomes. Is there in your view a risk that, as is the case with the National Lottery, gambling taxes can be seen by some as a tax on the poor? If I could just add a rider to that, none of us, I do not think, would disagree that gambling for some people is a significant cause of their debt position, including card debt, as we heard in the earlier evidence. How do you think this could be minimised? Mr Lomax: Obviously in the absolutely literal sense gambling taxation falls equally on every gambler, but the studies do show that those with lower incomes tend to spend a higher proportion of that income on gambling, so there is a sense in which you could look at an increase in gambling opportunities and, therefore, taxation as regressive because if things carry on as they are, we can safely say that those with lower incomes will be spending a higher proportion on it, so we know that already. That is actually doubly disappointing when you consider that actually the Government at present spend virtually nothing on treatment of problem gamblers, particularly with the notion of that taxation. On the debt issue, as I am sure you are aware, the Salvation Army and indeed lots of churches deal with thousands of vulnerable people each year. If I can just give two very short anecdotes, there is a homelessness centre about a quarter of a mile from here, a Salvation Army one, on Great Peter Street. I spoke to the manager there a couple of weeks ago and at this present time there are 28 residents, blokes, in that place there who in their key worker sessions are claiming, and it is all self-diagnosed, but identifying problem gambling as a real issue for them. More than that, there are three gentlemen at the hostel, just this one hostel in Central London, who have asked members of staff in the hostel to actually accompany them to the post office or wherever to pick up their benefits so that they can be escorted back to the hostel because they actually do not trust themselves to go alone. There are some better stories. There is a chap also called Roger from Scotland whom I was also speaking to around this issue who basically got into gambling through horseracing and things cascaded, as these things tend to do. His wife asked him to move out and then, after he moved back to his parents, they asked him to move out, so he ended up at one of our homelessness centres in Bradford. Now, after a lot of work not just on the Salvation Army's part, but other agencies as well, Roger has really sorted himself out and I spoke to him in our head office a couple of weeks ago over a coffee and he was just off to his job with one of the train companies in south-east London, so there is some hope, but both of those show that yes, I think this does have a disproportionate effect on those on low incomes. What can be done? I think the first thing is credit cards in terms that we are all very concerned about the proliferation of gambling on credit. There just seems to be something innately worrying about that and again our poll showed that 94 per cent of the population feel that allowing people to gamble with credit cards would put people at a greater risk of incurring gambling debts. It sounds obvious. It is obvious and people are saying it is obvious. The second thing is membership. If we go back to the casino issue again, it is things like loyalty cards or membership tallies that allow you to keep track of what you are spending. It is not a walk in off the street issue and so you are not really sure what is going on. That is one potential safeguard. The third and final issue is debt counselling. We have heard a lot about problem gambling as an illness or a condition that the academics and the psychologists can speak to you about, but as these gentlemen a quarter of a mile from here know, it is about financial issues as well and being able to deal with their money. So we would like to see some real highlighting of debt counselling as an issue. Q289 Viscount Falkland: Could I ask you whether it would surprise you to hear that yesterday when we went to GamCare we met a young woman whose partner had got their relationship into such a state that they were on the verge of having their house repossessed and this had been going on for a long time and she showed us a batch of that morning's mail to her husband offering further lending facilities from credit card companies? Mr Lomax: It would not be surprising at all. I would not feel qualified to speak about the psychology of crossovers between problem gambling and other kinds of financial problems, but anecdotally that does seem to be the case. GamCare say that the average level of debt for somebody who rings a helpline is about ,19,000. The Office of National Statistics in November or December released statistics saying that for the average household it is ,5,000 of unsecured debt. That is still a large amount of unsecured debt. For problem gamblers it is already four times higher and we are really very concerned about that. Q290 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Do you believe that the NHS should accept that problem gambling is a problem like drinking or any other problem that people get involved in and so ought to be treated at the cost of the NHS? Mr Lomax: As was raised earlier in one of the questions, it seems to me a very obvious potential consequence for the NHS. As Professor Orford was saying earlier on, this is a public health issue. The language of gambling is as a leisure activity which many people enjoy and that is absolutely fine and the Government are very keen to push that leisure activity angle for obvious reasons, but as Professor Orford definitively pointed out this morning, this is already a public health issue and as such I am sure that the NHS really would want to be involved in that. Q291 Lord Donoughue of Ashton: There will be new gambling facilities developed under the Bill, if it proceeds and that would go to the local authorities who do not necessarily have experience in this area and for whom it is not clear what priority it would be. What factors do you think local authorities should take into account when considering these applications and who should they consult before proceeding? Ms Hogg: We do have lots of grass‑roots experience of this now and I am very glad that the Committee is going to address planning licensing on the twenty-ninth which I look forward to with great interest. We feel that the social impact must become what planners call a material consideration in the planning process. What we are finding at the moment is that if you start raising concern about the social impact of a building proposal planning officers' eyes glaze over because it is outside their remit, the borough council planning committee members are very wary of even raising it because they do not want to hand the developer grounds for appeal by raising something which is outside of the remit and social agency professionals who we have spoken to may agree with the logic that it is going to add to their burden but they do not feel able to comment against a matter such as this is which is already stated government policy and this is our frustration. We want to see four things. The first one is consultation. We would like the statutory consultees, as they are termed in the planning process, to include any of the agencies who pick up the pieces and that could potentially be very broad. We do want social impact to be a material consideration. Secondly, we would like a multi‑dimensional approach. We would like there to be a statutory requirement on the planning committees to commission an independent report on the economic, social and infrastructure effects of any significant development and this would bring it all out into the open. Thirdly, proportionality, we think that such an independent report should cover the area from which the casino development plans to draw its customers. For instance in Blackpool, where some people want a casino resort, the casino resort plans to draw customers from a very wide area and so the social impact should be determined across the whole of the north‑west because the footprints of the building will be very broad. I know section 129 of the Act talks about adjoining properties but we feel that is really inadequate. Finally, we come back to what the learned professors were saying about the need for more research because as soon as the professionals come in they will say "Where's the research". At the moment we feel the planning process is not able to offer local communities sufficient protection. Q292 Lord Wade of Chorlton: These two questions follow on from the submissions we have had from the Methodist Church. You state in your submission that you strongly recommend that a reference to social responsibility codes be included in the Bill itself and also that the Commission should have regard to whether the applicant has made a demonstrable commitment to operating in a socially responsible way. Could you just explain why you think that is necessary and how you would expect operators to demonstrate that social responsibility? Ms Lampard: I understand social responsibility as being about the gambling operators taking responsibility for the damage that gambling can cause to some of their customers. Whilst the contributions they may make to treatment and research and education are very important, it is not just about corporate giving, it is about business practices and how they operate. There are two specific reasons why I think there should be particular mention of social responsibility within the face of the Bill itself. First of all, there is a lot of scepticism about this Bill. The constituencies that we represent are quite fearful in many ways that it is going to result in a free for all. Social responsibility is constantly mentioned by the Government. I am always mentioning it when I am trying to defend some of the things that the Bill is trying to achieve. If it could be incorporated into the Bill itself it would leave the Government and the people who are trying to defend it a lot less exposed. Secondly, I think it is so central to the new regime that this needs to be in a sense drawn to the attention of the gambling industry in the starkest way possible. Under clause 56(ii) there are the range of issues that the Gambling Commission have to have regard to in forming an opinion about the suitability of an applicant for a licence and they are things like integrity, competence and financial situation. If a demonstrable commitment to social responsibility was included alongside that that would embed social responsibility concepts and practices deeply within the Bill. It would also mean that social responsibility would count from day one. It would not just be when you broke a code, you would have to demonstrate from day one that you were implementing this throughout your organisation. Q293 Lord Wade of Chorlton: Are you saying that social responsibility is too easy to define in all kinds of different ways? Ms Lampard: Shall I tell you how I would define it? Q294 Lord Wade of Chorlton: That is what I am asking you to do. If you do not want to do it now, you might like to write to us and explain to us what you mean by it and what you would expect the company to carry out in practice, that is the point. Ms Lampard: I am sure the Committee will have seen the many voluntary codes that already exist and it is across the industry. I think there are five areas that I would want to see companies abiding by in terms of social responsibility. The first is about how you prevent children's access and that might be about checking ID on the way in. If you are doing Internet gambling then it might be about not using the kind of cards that children have access to. Solo cards are available to people of 14 or so and you can use them on some Internet gambling sites. The second area is how you make the customer aware of what they are getting into, that might be things like probabilities of play that was referred to in the previous session. The third one is the structural concepts of what types of games are particularly problematic and how do you reduce that risk element, so it might be about introducing reality checks or clocks or breaks in machine gaming, the kind of thing that actually reduces the structural likelihood of developing problems with your gambling. The fourth is about how you act towards people who are at risk of losing control of their gambling, how you treat problem gamblers, so that might be about having help-lines, leaflets or little stickers on the machines. It might be about having trained staff so that if somebody gets to the point where they say "This is out of control. I can't handle it anymore. What shall I do?" somebody is there not necessarily to give them counselling but who will know how to handle that situation, that person and to help them to move on to recovery, to deal with their problems. The fifth one relates to how the gambling industry and the operators themselves actually relate to the communities around them, whether it is agreements about the treatment of the local environment or it is about involvement in local projects, but that should be part of the social responsibility. I would argue that they need to be able to demonstrate that before getting their licences, in order to be able to get it and that is the only way that we are going to build into the Bill the guarantees and the safeguards aimed at the children of vulnerable people that the Government has placed so high on its agenda. Chairman: Thank you very much. That is very clear and very helpful. Q295 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I would like to ask you about the Gambling Industry Charitable Trust. Jennifer, you make the point in your written evidence that you believe it is essential that the GICT is independent of the industry. Can you say what you mean by that? Ms Hogg: I think what we meant by that was that we would like to see a trust that has credibility. The name itself is questionable, the Gambling Industry Charitable Trust. It all depends on who is in the driving seat. If the industry is prepared to allow a body to call it to account, something that has teeth, then we would be very interested in that. If it is going to dispense funds it would not be quite so effective. Q296 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Do you think representatives of the industry should sit on it? Ms Hogg: It depends who is in the driving seat, but what we would like to see is a multi‑dimensional body with representatives of organisations that treat gambling involved, faith groups definitely, if that was appropriate, social agencies, addiction specialists, educationalists, we would like to see a broad remit. Q297 Lord Mancroft: As trustees? Ms Lampard: Either as trustees or in terms of an advisory group. It is about having breadth and having a range of people who are able to set the funding priorities and also the research priorities which the industry will then fund and that could be an arm's length approach. Q298 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Is the basis of the arm's length approach not a voluntary contribution but one that is statutorily contained in the Bill? Ms Lampard: There are a variety of views on this. Q299 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: I am asking you for yours. Ms Lampard: My view is that we ought to give the voluntary approach a chance. That is partly on the basis that it is always good if you can get people to buy into things as they are far more likely to care about the spirit of it. Research, looking at other jurisdictions, shows that if you have a certain level you get less money because much more of it will go on the administration. So I would want to see a voluntary level given a chance but with a big stick behind it if it does not work out and that stick being waived very firmly at members of the industry who at the moment are freeloading on the other people who are contributing to the trust. We make the suggestion in our submission that the Commission might like to look at the question of donations to the trust itself or other appropriate bodies as part of the evidence of compliance with social responsibility codes. Q300 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: Do you think industry representatives should have a say in how their own particular industry is being investigated by the trust and how treatment is being prescribed for people who have problems dealing with that branch of the gambling industry? Ms Lampard: I think it comes back to this issue of credibility and as soon as you get into areas where there might be conflicts of interest it will be in the trust's interest for those members to withdraw or step back so there cannot be any accusations made. They have to be cleaner than clean in this sense. So I think it needs to be as arm's length as possible in every way, particularly around research and around advertising and services and treatment. Q301 Lord Faulkner of Worcester: One of the aspects of deregulation which is contained in the draft Bill is the probability that the industry will be able to advertise a great deal more than it has done in the past. It is not inconceivable that we shall see ads for casinos on television. Do you think it would be helpful if those carried a health warning possibly in the form of a subtitle at the bottom of the ad saying that if you are going to gamble in public you should ring this number? Ms Lampard: Yes, I think it would be very valuable having that on every advert and also saying "Stay in control of your gambling". I think it would have to have that kind of health warning, that kind of approach along with the suggestions being made by Professor Orford that you cannot have the idea of skill being part of advertising, the idea that it has to be chance, it has to be leisure, it cannot be about improving your life, the kind of codes that the National Lottery has been having to abide by over the last few years. Q302 Chairman: Is the ,3 million enough in your view for GICT? Ms Chambers: Absolutely not. Ms Lampard: We think there has to be research. It is not based on particular research as far as we are concerned. Ten pounds per gambler seems to be a figure that has been slightly plucked out of the air. It is a good start and it will be nice when they get up to the figure of ,3 million, but there needs to be research and adequate funding. Q303 Lord Mancroft: In its submission Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs state that you would prefer a much more cautious approach to the proliferation of Category A gaming machines. You have already made your concern about that reasonably clear. How do you envisage a more cautious approach working? Ms Chambers: The particular concern that we have is the fact that in the largest size of casino there would be unlimited numbers of these and we are not quite sure how the numbers and ratios were worked out, that process is not quite clear to us at any rate. It seems to have an unlimited number straightaway in certain premises where we know that these machines are likely to cause the most problems and the greatest impact on adult problem gambling rates which seems to be quite reckless. What we would be looking for is no premises to have unlimited numbers and much more cautious numbers perhaps in pilot areas and again those being very stringently researched so that the impacts on the local population ‑ taking "local" as broadly as it needs to be defined ‑ before this very large scale proliferation is allowed. Q304 Chairman: Thank you very much. In the Quaker Action on Alcohol and Drugs submission you say that dependency problems are far easier to unleash than to prevent or to reverse. If there is a public backlash because of a growth in problem gambling, what is your view on what sort of difficulties the Government would face in re‑regulating the industry? Mr Lomax: I think there is a real possibility of a backlash and both the Government and the Committee should be aware of that. I know this is a figure that people keep mentioning, but 93 per cent of people say there are enough opportunities to gamble already. If five or ten years down the line we can see that there has been any growth in problem gambling as a direct consequence of what has happened with this Bill given the lack of public demand, then I think that is going to be a very difficult political situation for any Government to deal with. That also ties in to knowing where we have come from and where we are going to in the sense of research. We will need to be able to stand in 2010 and look at where we are and where we have come from and that is where we would all be highlighting the need for continued research before any of this is done and we would argue for that five yearly cycle, so another prevalence report before deregulation so we can see where we are. We have all stated in our submissions that we are not prepared to accept any rise in problem gamblers. I think that is even starker if you follow Professor Orford's view and see it as a public health problem. It is difficult to imagine a Government legislating on another area whilst knowing that there is likely to be an increase in the public health problem directly linked. It is not for me to talk about political difficulties, but if in 2010 some trigger as yet undefined by the Government about what they are willing to accept as an increase is triggered the gambling industry will not portray it as re‑regulation, it will be seen and portrayed as regulation, extra red tape, extra bureaucracy, an extra burden and I am sure governments and politicians will be wary of that. We think there could be a problem and that is why we are calling for incredibly slow and careful and deliberate deregulation. Ms Chambers: I want to bring us back to the note that the last witness ended on which was what we were thinking when we framed that note, which is really the human cost of all this, the problems for individuals. There are statutory and policy difficulties that might accrue even to Government, but the other concern is really with the communities and the people in them and what difficulties will have been experienced on the way, knowing the difficulties that there are in gaining access to effective help and quick help. That is the overwhelming feeling that I would like to end with. Chairman: Thank you very much for that. Can I thank all four of you for coming this morning and for giving your evidence clearly and for the memorandum that you have sent to us. All I can say is that we will think very carefully about what you have said. |