The White Paper on Gambling Reform Likely to be Delayed Further due to PM Boris Johnson’s Resignation
After a turbulent year for the Conservative Party, ‘Partygate’ scandals, and the most recent misconduct allegations against Chris Pincher saw mass resignations throughout the Conservative party which lead to PM Boris Johnson’s resignation on the 7th July 2022.
Mass Resignations
59 members of the Conservative party resigned in quick succession after snowballing events, MPs realised they could no longer support Boris Johnson and the PM had no choice but to hand in his resignation citing,
“It is clear now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new Prime Minister.
“In Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when it moves, it moves.”
Further Delays
It’s inevitable, that the resignation will prolong the highly anticipated White Paper on Gambling reforms which were due for release at the end of July. Notably, the minister for gambling Chris Philp was included in the 59 resignations.
The White Paper is set to reveal the biggest shake-up in gambling reform to bring the outdated Gambling Act 2005 into the digital era. Ironically, the gambling industry is now introducing markets as to who will become the new Prime Minister!
The delays are expected to continue while the chaos reigns in No 10, anti-gambling campaigners insist the government reform of the Gambling Act needs to reflect the growing digital market, something that did not exist back in 2005.
They believe each day the White Paper is delayed more people will fall foul of gambling-related harm despite a fall in gambling-related problems from 0.4% to 0.2% in 2022.
Michael Dugher from the Betting and Gaming Council warned MPs too stricter measures imposed on the UK gambling sector would force customers to the unsafe, unregulated black-market sites. In the past few years, the number of customers heading to these sites rose to 460,000 with billions spent.
