Stephen Timms – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Stephen Timms on 2016-09-15.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps she is taking to monitor compliance by betting shops with the gambling minimum age.

Tracey Crouch

The protection of children from being harmed or exploited by gambling is one of the core objectives of the Gambling Act 2005.

For high street betting, this means those under the age of 18 are prohibited from entering or gambling within a betting premises. The Gambling Commission, responsible for compliance on this issue, strengthened the requirements on betting operators to monitor the effectiveness of these age verification controls in May 2015.

The number of individuals challenged upon entry to a betting sector premises but unable to prove their age was 475,646 between Oct 2014- Sep 2015. This is across a total of 9000 betting shops and is a decrease of 8.2% or 42,598 incidents compared to the previous reporting period of Apr 2014 – Mar 2015; continuing a 3-year decline. The number of individuals challenged having gambled but unable to prove their age also fell, by 14%, to 23,619 from 27,445 in the same time period.

Where there is a failure to prevent underage gambling, regulatory and/or criminal action is taken.