What a big gamble

JO HAYWOOD talks to Ryedale MP John Greenway about his mission to bring our gambling laws into the 21st Century.

WHEN betting tax was abolished in 2001 experts predicted an upturn in gambling. Few could have guessed, however, just how enormous that upturn would be.

According to HM Customs figures, the amount of money gambled by Britons was relatively stable between 1994 and 2001. But when the tax was scrapped it rose by £3 billion to £10.3 billion, increasing sharply again in the following two years to a staggering £29.6 billion in 2003.

Bookmaker William Hill has put the rise down to punters "saving" the nine per cent they used to pay out in tax and adding that to their gambling pot.

But John Greenway, Ryedale MP and head of the House of Commons joint committee on the new draft Gambling Bill, said increased opportunities for unregulated gambling are at the heart of the problem.

"Betting shops and casinos are not the prime areas of concern," he said. "There are more and more betting opportunities outside of the regulated sector, such as fixed odds machines, Internet betting and exchanges, which we have absolutely no control over because the current law is woefully out of date.

"We need strong powers married with statutory obligations of social responsibility to keep them in line."

Fixed odds machines are high pay-out gaming machines offering jackpots of anything up to £500, and exchanges are when groups of people choose not to use a bookmaker and bet among themselves instead. Both have contributed to the massive rise in gambling in the UK but, according to Mr Greenway, both pale into relative insignificance when set against Internet gambling.

"Most countries have turned their face completely against Internet gambling," he said. "They say it cannot be stopped so why legislate.

"The Government here, supported by my committee, believes there has to be regulation. We don't want to stop people betting, we just want to ensure they can do it safely."

Ultimately, he wants all Internet betting sites to operate under licence from the Gambling Commission. This would mean abiding by its code of conduct, ensuring punters receive their winnings, encouraging players to set out their spending limits in advance and calling a halt to speed play, where gamblers can repeatedly bet at the touch of a button.

"We want to ensure that these sites are not scamming people out of their money," said Mr Greenway. "Basically, if you use a licensed site you will receive your winnings."

Since standing down as a Tory shadow culture and sport minister to take on the gambling issue, he has been dogged by questions about plans to relax betting rules and the creation of luxury Las Vegas-style casinos.

But this, he believes, is to miss the point of what his committee is hoping to achieve.

"We are not looking to turn the country into Las Vegas," he said. "Gambling is a huge industry and the problems are not at the luxury end, they are at the bread and butter end, the exchanges and the Internet sites."

The Gambling Bill select committee produced one of the biggest reports ever seen by the House in April, making a total of 139 recommendations. Its second report is due to be unveiled on Thursday.

This is likely to recommend that some new casino developments should be given the go-ahead, but far fewer than were on the Government's initial wish list. It will also suggest that those casinos given the green light should only be developed as part of a larger regeneration scheme with leisure and entertainment opportunities for the wider community.

The Government has pledged to put the bill forward this autumn - a timetable Mr Greenway is anxious it adheres to.

"My concern is that people will look at these figures from HM Customs and think the problem has already got away from us, that unregulated gambling has mushroomed out of control and that further legislation is not the answer," he said. "I profoundly disagree with this view.

"Some people have failed to grasp how far the law is out of date. There are now gambling opportunities that didn't exist when the law was passed. I mean, no one had even heard of a computer when the legislation was introduced in the 1960s."

He firmly believes that new legislation is the only way to effectively deal with new betting technology.

"Gambling cannot be advertised, but Internet betting sites are not regulated and are therefore advertised all over the place," Mr Greenway said. "As long as they don't breach Advertising Standards Authority guidelines, there is no way to stop them."

One of the most attention-grabbing advertising campaigns involves huge images of the pop diva Beyonc on the walls of train and tube stations inviting punters to join her at Paradise Poker. While this is undoubtedly aimed at male gamblers, it could also be adding to the growing popularity of Internet betting among women. If it's all right by Beyonc, they may think, it's all right by me.

"Women in particular find this form of gambling attractive," said Mr Greenway. "It's very easy and you don't even have to leave the comfort of your own home."

He is concerned about the increasing potential for gambling addiction as opportunities for betting become easier to access and more widespread.

But he believes particular recommendations put forward by his committee could offer a crucial counterbalance, most notably its view that different parts of government, including the department of health, must work together to address this as a public health issue, and that the Government and the gambling industry should foot the bill. Perhaps the latter could use the loose change from its fourfold increase in turnover.

"An increase in turnover in betting shops as a result of the tax cut is not necessarily a negative," said Mr Greenway. "If, for instance, some of the money goes back into racing it can only add to the viability of what is already an important industry."

Updated: 09:44 Tuesday, July 20, 2004