New Gambling Act Survey Reveals More than Half Involved Welcomes Gambling Reform
A survey conducted by Survation on behalf of the Gambling With Lives Foundation found more than half of participants agreed the forthcoming Gambling Act review will reform the UK gambling industry.
Out of the 1,009 participants, 16.1% disagreed the review White Paper on gambling reform should not be looked upon as an opportunity to reform gambling within the UK.
In terms of protecting younger people from gambling, 41.7% agreed the current legislation did not protect them from gambling-related harms compared to 25.5% who disagreed.
A large proportion of the surveyed group agreed with this statement “Nobody under the age of 18 should be exposed to gambling advertisements”. Only 95 people out of 1,009 who took part disagreed.
In a statement last week, the UK Premier League Football Association announced a ban on front-of-shirt advertisements from gambling operators at the end of 2025-26.
Deposit Caps and Affordability Checks
One of the biggest fears among gambling operators and the industry body for the regulated UK betting market the Betting and Gaming Council is a cap on deposits into consumers’ gambling accounts. If this were to happen there would be a greater risk of people migrating to black market gambling sites with little or no protection.
Another statement put forward to participants read, “There should be limits on how much money consumers can deposit into online gambling accounts”, again, more than half agreed deposit limits should be set, while a mere 10.8% disagreed.
Affordability checks are another measure proposed to be included in the White Paper, consumers would need to prove they could afford to gamble and supply the likes of bank statements to operators. This has been met with a huge backlash from operators and consumers, with many stating they are not willing to submit highly sensitive bank statements in order to deposit and have suggested they would gamble at black market sites as an alternative. When confronted with the statement “To protect customers, there should be affordability checks for those who want to bet more than £100 a month”, 64.1% agreed, while 10.6% did not.
Interestingly, when the statement “There should be limits on how much money can be staked on any single bet online” more than half agreed with 10.8% disagreeing.
According to the participants involved in the survey, more than half seem in favour of much more strict reform from the reviewed Gambling Act, the White Paper is due to be released at the end of the week.
