OHID Adds Seven Groups to England's Levy Prevention Fund, Lifting It to £39.7m

The health department has added seven organisations to its levy-funded prevention grants for England, among them Gambling with Lives, Chapter One and Gamban, which were all absent from April's list. The fund has grown by more than half, with no public explanation.

• The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities added seven recipients to its gambling harms prevention fund for England on 6 November, lifting provisional awards from £25.4 million to £39.7 million
• Chapter One received £3.06 million, Waythrough £2.77 million, Gamban £2.71 million, Gambling with Lives £1.88 million, GamLEARN £1.83 million, Beacon Counselling £1.64 million and Tameside, Oldham, Glossop and Stockport Mind £208,015
• The money covers 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to 2028 and comes from the prevention strand of the statutory levy that replaced GambleAware's voluntary model
• Every applicant had to commit to taking no direct industry funding after 1 April 2026, lotteries excepted
• Gamban has said that the same commissioner had excluded it because it is a limited company; the government page does not say what has changed

Seven Organisations Join a Fund First Published in April

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), part of the Department of Health and Social Care, updated its VCSE sector gambling harms prevention and resilience funding list on 6 November. The change note says it "added 7 new grant recipients" and "updated funding amounts". The fund covers England only.

The list now names 40 voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations sharing £39,702,604.10, against 33 sharing £25,441,281 when it was first published on 7 April. The seven additions account for £14.1 million: Beacon Counselling (£1,638,142), Chapter One (£3,057,218), Gamban (£2,714,063), GamLEARN (£1,831,218), Gambling with Lives (£1,881,859), Tameside, Oldham, Glossop and Stockport Mind (£208,015) and Waythrough (£2,770,248.10). The only change among existing recipients is Wolverhampton Citizens Advice Bureaux, raised from £595,868 to £756,427.

Chapter One's award is now second only to GamCare's £4,042,699. All allocations remain provisional, subject to grant agreements, and may still change, OHID says.

What the Money Is For and Where It Comes From

OHID's stated objectives are to strengthen the sector's prevention work, build delivery capacity and develop "an independent, evidence-based approach" to public health policy. Applications closed on 6 February 2026. Applicants had to declare interests, commit to receiving no direct industry funding after 1 April 2026 (the National Lottery and social lotteries excepted), and review materials adopted while funded by the industry or GambleAware.

The grants are paid from the prevention strand of the statutory levy. According to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, 30% of levy income goes to prevention through OHID and the Scottish and Welsh governments, 50% to treatment through NHS England and the devolved governments, and 20% to research through UK Research and Innovation, which funds the £22 million research centre. The page, last updated in March, says the levy has raised just under £120 million this year. OHID is separately giving £12 million to upper-tier councils for 2026 to 2027, and NHS England runs its own VCSE grant for treatment.

Who the New Recipients Are

The page gives no reason for the additions. NEXT.io, which grouped Gambling with Lives, Gamban, GamLEARN and Chapter One as "campaigner-aligned", reported that they followed legal challenges to earlier funding decisions; OHID's page does not mention any.

Gambling with Lives describes itself as a charity set up in 2018 by families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, and says bereaved families' campaigning helped secure the review of the Gambling Act 2005, whose 2023 white paper proposed the statutory levy. It says it launched Chapter One in 2023 with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Together the two now hold £4.94 million.

Gamban's website says it moved to paid subscriptions in England and Scotland when TalkBanStop ended on 31 March, because OHID had excluded it "on the basis of its entity being a limited company".

The Fund Grew by Half Without a Public Rationale

A 56% increase to a fund presented in April as the outcome of a "fair and transparent" assessment needs more than a change note. The page does not say whether the seven were reassessed, succeeded on challenge or took money left unallocated. Until OHID explains, applicants turned down in April cannot tell whether those decisions were final.

Industry Independence Is Now the Entry Condition

The no-industry-funding pledge is the clearest policy signal in the document. It makes OHID's money a replacement for operator grants, not a top-up, and moves organisations that once relied on GambleAware under one public commissioner. Operators across the United Kingdom pay for the system but no longer choose its recipients.

Gamban's Award Tests the Limited-Company Line

Gamban's own statement put its exclusion down to its legal form, yet it now appears on a list of VCSE organisations. Either the eligibility reading has changed or the vehicle has, and OHID has not said which. Other commercial suppliers of blocking tools will want the answer.

The levy has given England's prevention sector almost £40 million over two years and a clear rule on industry money. How OHID decides who shares it is, on the public record, still a one-sentence change note.