Lords Committee Calls a Comprehensive Ban the Most Effective Gambling Ad Policy

Six years after the Gambling Industry Committee asked for a public health approach to advertising, the Lords Liaison Committee has followed up and found the recommendations "largely unaddressed". Its answer is a ban, and it says the black-market argument against one did not convince it.

• The House of Lords Liaison Committee's follow-up report says a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising is "the most effective policy option" for the Government's aim of reducing gambling harm, according to the committee's statement
• The cross-party committee estimates 1.0 to 1.5 million adults in Great Britain gamble in a way that may be described as problem gambling, and notes the industry spends over £1 billion a year on advertising
• It says Great Britain has become "a comparative outlier" as other jurisdictions restrict advertising, and it was "unconvinced" that restricting licensed operators' advertising would push customers to the illegal market
• Lord Foster of Bath cited a Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research estimate that a 10% cut in gambling spend could add £1.25 billion of GVA and over 22,000 jobs
• The industry told the same committee in June that the NHS Health Survey for England puts problem gambling nearer 350,000 people, and that self-regulation has been tightening

The 2020 Recommendations Come Back With a Harder Edge

The House of Lords Liaison Committee has published a follow-up to the July 2020 report of the Gambling Industry Committee, which recommended a public health approach to gambling advertising and its harms. The new report, from a cross-party committee chaired by the Senior Deputy Speaker, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, argues that a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising "represents the most effective policy option to advance meaningfully the Government's aim of reducing gambling harms" and is "a vital part of a public health approach", according to the committee's statement as reported by G3 Newswire.

The committee's case rests on scale and on history. It estimates that between 1.0 and 1.5 million adults in Great Britain gamble in a way that may be described as problem gambling, experiencing harms that range from relationship breakdown and borrowing to fund gambling through to mental ill health and suicide. It says the industry is "particularly reliant on a small proportion of higher-spending customers and derives disproportionate profits from people in deprived areas". Before the Gambling Act 2005, only bingo, the football pools, the National Lottery and other permitted lotteries could advertise on television and radio, on the principle that gambling should be tolerated but not stimulated; since then, the committee says, advertising volume "has exploded", with industry spend now over £1 billion a year.

Two arguments in the report are aimed squarely at the industry's defence. The committee says Great Britain has a stronger evidence base than comparable jurisdictions on the link between advertising and harm, yet has watched others move ahead with restrictions and become "a comparative outlier". And it says it was "unconvinced by claims that restrictions on advertising by licensed operators will lead to displacement of customers to the illegal market", concluding that concerns over the illegal market "must therefore not be a barrier to addressing the clear harms generated by the licensed sector". It calls for stronger action on unregulated gambling in the same breath.

Lord Ponsonby said six years had elapsed since the original report and that its "strong recommendations have been largely unaddressed". Lord Foster of Bath, a member of the former committee, said a ban on most advertising "would shrink, rather than grow, the gambling sector", and cited a Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research study estimating that a 10% reduction in gambling spend could increase gross value added by £1.25 billion and create over 22,000 jobs. The report also sets out detailed recommendations on advertising regulation should the Government refuse a ban, or as part of a transition, and criticises governments for being "far too passive" about digital advertising and content marketing that "appeals strongly to children".

What the Committee Heard From the Other Side

The committee took evidence on 17 June from both camps, and the transcripts on the parliamentary record show how far apart the numbers are. Betting and Gaming Council chief executive Grainne Hurst told peers that 22.5 million customers use its members' products each month, that the NHS survey for England puts the at-risk figure at 0.7%, and that the industry voluntarily funded £170 million of research, education and treatment before the statutory levy took over. Dan Waugh of Regulus Partners said the Health Survey for England suggests a problem gambling population of around 350,000, that the 2024 rate was below 2015's, and that the Gambling Commission's Gambling Survey for Great Britain "substantially overstates participation".

The Gambling Commission's acting chief executive Sarah Gardner told the same session that the GSGB, with about 20,000 respondents a year, found 48% of adults had gambled in the past four weeks in 2024, 28% excluding lottery-only play, and that 2.7% of all participants scored eight or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index, a figure she said was statistically stable and must not be confused with clinical addiction. Gambling minister Baroness Twycross gave evidence alongside her. The Government's response to the report is awaited.

The Committee Has Attacked the Industry's Strongest Argument Head On

Displacement to the black market is the argument the licensed sector reaches for first, and it has worked: it shaped the 2023 White Paper and has slowed every advertising proposal since. A parliamentary committee saying in terms that it was "unconvinced" is a different order of challenge from a campaign group saying so, because it forces the Government to either produce the displacement evidence or explain why it is acting on a claim a committee found unpersuasive. The industry's problem is that its own witnesses spent June arguing about prevalence surveys rather than channelisation data. The counter is not that the illegal market does not exist, which nobody disputes; it is that Great Britain has no measured evidence of what a domestic advertising ban does to it, because Great Britain has never had one. Australia will supply that evidence from January, and both sides should expect to be quoting it.

The Economic Case Is the Novel Part, and the Least Tested

The 2020 report argued harm. This one argues growth: that shrinking gambling reallocates spend into sectors with more jobs per pound, and it puts a figure on it. That is a shrewd framing for a Government whose stated mission is growth, and it is also the claim most exposed to methodological challenge. A £1.25 billion GVA gain from a 10% spend reduction is a modelled reallocation, not an observed one, and it assumes the money leaves gambling rather than leaving the licensed market. The Treasury, which has just been through a bruising argument about gambling duty, will read that assumption closely. The committee has given ministers a reason to act; it has not yet given them a number they can defend at the dispatch box.

Momentum Is With the Restrictors, but the Lever Is Not in This House

A Liaison Committee follow-up cannot legislate; it can only make ignoring the 2020 report harder, and it has done that. It lands five months after peers and MPs published their own advertising blueprint, in the first season of the Premier League's voluntary front-of-shirt ban, and weeks after Australia legislated. The Government's position is that the White Paper and the levy are the settlement. That is becoming harder to say with each report that calls it insufficient, and easier to abandon once another common-law jurisdiction has shown the roof does not fall in.

The committee has moved the argument from whether advertising causes harm to whether the Government can justify not acting on it. That is the ground the industry least wanted to fight on.