Young People: Gambling Harm
House of Lords · Lords Chamber · 23 Jul 2026 · 15 speeches · Official Report
Question for Short Debate
Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to reduce gambling harm among young people.
My Lords, I begin by congratulating the Minister on what appear to be yet more responsibilities that she is taking on. I welcome this opportunity to debate with her what the Government plan to do to reduce gambling harm among children and young people. In doing so, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for Gambling Reform. We have long accepted a simple principle: where there is clear evidence that commercial activity harms children, government has a duty to intervene, adopting a public health approach. We have accepted that principle in relation to tobacco, to alcohol and, more recently, to vapes. We are applying it to unhealthy food, to social media, to alcohol and again, more recently, to high-caffeine energy drinks. The same should surely apply to gambling. Yes, of course it is illegal for children to gamble, but a very large number do, so we are clearly not doing enough, despite the protection of children and young people being a core licensing objective in the ill-conceived Gambling Act 2005. Last year, the Gambling Commission found that 59% of young people had taken part in some form of gambling in the previous year, that 30% had used their own money in doing so and that three in 10 children see members of their own family gambling. Most worryingly of all, it found that some 80,000 children are suffering gambling harm: in common parlance, 80,000 children are gambling addicts and many thousands more are at risk of becoming so. We need to do more to catch up with the...
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on securing this short debate and on his long-standing work on preventing gambling harms. Like him, I am very pleased to see the Minister continuing in her role at DCMS. I will focus on the international implications of gambling harms experienced by young sports players. I am a member of our International Agreements Committee and we are currently scrutinising the impact of the Government’s proposal to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, known as the Macolin convention. It is the first and only international treaty on the manipulation of sports competitions. I am grateful to all those who have given evidence to our committee. We have learned a great deal about how young sportspeople can fall into the traps set by those who organise international illegal operations and bribe them. Young people who are just starting out on their careers may be easy targets. We heard compelling evidence from ex-footballer Moses Swaibu about his experience of match fixing and the broader systems behind it, and about how easy it is to get sucked into the illegal gambling world, whether you are playing in league or non-league matches. His entry into professional sports started when he was 16 and playing for his Croydon state school. He secured a one-year professional contract with Crystal Palace FC and entered an environment of mentors, structures, big brothers and discipline-a new world for him....
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foster, for bringing this debate and for the unfailing, tireless work he does in this area. I declare my interest as medical director of the Primary Care Gambling Service, which treats patients experiencing gambling-related harms in services across England. No matter how good my service is, when a young person walks through that door, we have already failed them. As noble Lords have heard, the numbers tell their own story: nearly half of 11 to 17 year-olds have gambled in the past year and 30% have spent their own money doing so, which is up from 27% last year. Most strikingly, the increase is being driven almost entirely by unregulated gambling, which has risen from 15% to 18% in just one year. Separately, the Gambling Commission finds that one in five 18 to 24 year-olds now gambles to relieve stress. These are not statistics about a handful of unlucky individuals. They describe a generation growing up in an environment designed to make gambling feel normal, safe and sociable-on their phones and in their feeds, increasingly disguised as a game and with no meaningful age gate. That is why prevention cannot begin only once harm has appeared and cannot mean simply warning young people about risks. It must mean intervening upstream: in product design, in advertising and in the “free-to-play” and loot-box mechanics that train children in gambling behaviours before they have ever placed a bet with real money. It has to mean treating...
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for tabling this debate on reducing gambling harm among young people. That sounds admirable but, hot on the heels of the Academy of Ideas World Cup sweepstake, organised by one of our young team, Jake Weston, an enthusiastic gambler himself, I want to appeal for perspective. As a reminder, for the vast majority of people across all age groups, gambling is harmless. As Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has noted, it can bring joy to millions of people who enjoy a regular flutter. So many get their pleasure from honing their skills in working out-and hopefully beating-the odds. Others just enjoy the thrill and challenge of taking a risk, often the sorts of instincts we want to encourage, for example in would-be entrepreneurs. Yet too often in debates in this Chamber, we discuss this legal, legitimate leisure activity as though it inevitably leads to ruin. It is unfairly characterised as toxic and pathologised as addictive, a threatening destroyer of individuals and family life. I thought of all this when watching a lovely clip of the football icon Kevin Keegan-in my opinion, the real king of the north-from a filmed interview doing the rounds since his sad death. Kevin movingly recalled how his dad used to back the horses regularly, just like most miners at the time. One year, he won a few quid on the Grand National and used all the money to buy his young, football-obsessed son some second-hand football boots, an act of fatherly...
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the Minister on her reappointment. We are discussing gambling harm among young people, but perhaps we should spare a thought to the trauma caused to the Ministers responsible for gambling policy. I apologise if I am about to add to that. Children under 18 are prohibited from gambling, but we also need to protect young adults-the 18 to 25 year-olds who are permitted to gamble-from harm. Fortunately, problem gambling rates among young people remain low. The problem gambling rate for 16 to 24 year-olds, according to the NHS Health Survey for England , fell from 1% in 2018 to 0.5% in 2024. Gambling for young people is regulated, with additional safeguards, including lower online slots stake limits for under-25s, age-targeting restrictions, deposit-limit prompts and financial vulnerability checks. We can debate the scope of these safeguards but I want to draw attention to the danger of making the wrong policy choice, with particular reference to horseracing. There is a strong case for saying that racing is different and should be treated differently when it comes to policy relating to gambling harm, which I fear it is not. First, British racing is financially dependent on a strong legal betting market. A long-standing, mutually dependent relationship exists between racing and betting, worth approximately £350 million annually to the sport through key revenue streams such as media rights payments, sponsorship and the horserace betting...
I apologise to the noble Lord, but this is a timed debate, so can he come to his conclusion?
I shall conclude in five seconds. With a new Prime Minister and new priorities, I respectfully suggest that this would be a good time to recalibrate a misguided and ill-targeted policy, give clear direction to the Gambling Commission and focus on the real issue here, which is problematic and harmful gambling in other areas.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle
My Lords, in following the noble Lord, Lord Herbert, I put on the record that the Green Party very much supports the affordability checks that the Government are planning to introduce. We have an awful lot of money sloshing around in the UK economy in all sorts of areas, and keeping a closer eye on it is clearly a very good idea. I should perhaps declare an interest in that tomorrow I will be speaking at a protest on the 100th anniversary of the first official greyhound race, calling for a ban on greyhound racing in England to follow those in Scotland and Wales. I declare my position as a member of Peers for Gambling Reform and thank our formidable leader, the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for securing this debate. I echo his hope that our new Prime Minister might act at scale to reverse many of the disastrous impacts of the ill-conceived Gambling Act 2005. We are focusing today on children and, like many noble Lords, I will draw on the Young People and Gambling 2025 report from the Gambling Commission, particularly looking at advertising. Essentially, half of young people-children under 18-are exposed to gambling-related adverts weekly. Boys are more likely than girls to be exposed, because of the very strong sporting link, which has been closely identified. They also have a huge amount of exposure to social media personalities promoting gambling. Another report, released last year, from GambleAware, revealed that children as young as 11 reported that they are regularly...
My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for speaking in all three debates today, and I too congratulate the Minister on her additional appointment. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on securing this debate. He has identified a problem that requires government action. However, action by government alone is not sufficient. Too much time in our courts is taken up with violence and theft caused by alcohol abuse, drug habits and gambling addiction. The problems are not unrelated. Public Health England’s 2021 report on gambling harms found a clear link between alcohol consumption and harmful gambling, with 35% of non-drinkers participating in gambling, compared with 74% of those who drank 50-plus units of alcohol per week. In terms of problem gambling, court appearances are the tip of the iceberg. As we have heard, the extent to which gambling affects young people is apparent in the figures. Online marketing is a particular problem, given that it is inherently skewed towards young people. They are susceptible, given that studies show that they do not fully understand how odds work, adopting simplistic views of risk. One study found that, among children who gamble, the most common reason for doing so is because it is fun. Once hooked, we know the problems in terms of psychological distress. Young people in the 18 to 24 age range who experience problem gambling are around 50% more likely than average to be experiencing high psychological stress and low mental...
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Foster for bringing this subject before us. It is a difficult one. We all know why it is a difficult one. If you are taking money out of somebody’s pocket for gambling, it is not there for other subjects. It can become an addiction and destroy their life. If we forget that, we forget why we are concerned about it. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, made the secondary but very important point that sport is threatened and potentially destroyed by gambling. The whole essence of sport is threatened. The World Cup could have been made an irrelevance by a betting conspiracy. All that excitement, all that adrenaline, all that bringing together, all that positiveness could have been ruined by one betting scandal. Cricket came close at one point. Racing is the most experienced bit of this. I live in the village of Lambourn. The amount of energy that goes into stopping illegal interference through gambling in racing is massive and has gone on for a long time. I know people who have been involved in this, hopefully all coming out on the right side of the law, but accusations have gone to the police. It can pervert things. What are we doing to stop betting behaviour becoming endemic and uncontrolled in the young? That is the question we are asking ourselves here. We had only one voice saying that this is not a problem, but the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is used to being by herself. What are we doing to get in? There is PSHE and GambleAware. Do we do...
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for this very important debate. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, back to her place. First, it is important to define what is meant by young people. Those under the age of 18 are classed as children and, despite the Government’s incoherence on this in other policy areas, gambling remains prohibited for children. Adults aged 18 to 25, on the other hand, are free to gamble but with additional safeguards such as financial vulnerability checks, deposit limit prompts and other age-targeted restrictions. The previous Government were proactive in tackling issues related to gambling. In 2019, a gambling clinic for those aged 13 to 25 was introduced as part of the NHS long-term plan. We published a review of the Gambling Act 2005 in December 2020 to assess whether it provided the right balance. In 2023 the gambling White Paper sought to strengthen protections for children and young adults significantly, including through the statutory levy and stake limits on online slots. That is not to say that there are no longer any problems. More than 16% of calls to the National Gambling Helpline came from those aged 18 to 25. Technology is constantly evolving, and co-operation with the sector is crucial. However, the regulated sector is itself threatened by the illegal gambling market, whose operators can advertise without any of the protections mentioned in your Lordships’ House. According to forecasts from the World...
My Lords, this has been an important debate, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, for securing it and all noble Lords who took part. I also thank noble Lords from across the House for their kind words. Let me be clear: this Government are fully committed to ensuring that the protections are robust to shield children and young people from gambling-related harm. Over the past two years, important progress has been made to strengthen protections to reduce the risk of gambling-related harm for young people. I say in response to the noble Lord, Lord Herbert of South Downs, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox-and, I hope, with all noble Lords’ support-that we will always follow the evidence in the policy-making process in this area. We know that the digital world moves faster than traditional regulation; this is why we introduced a £2 online slots stake limit for 18 to 24 year-olds-a targeted intervention aimed at young people, who are particularly vulnerable to unaffordable losses. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, said, harmful gambling appears higher among boys and young men. The noble Lord, Lord Evans of Rainow, asked about the definition of age. I think we are clear on what categorises children and young people within gambling policy, but I am happy to discuss that with him if he thinks that we do not have it clear enough. In the land-based sector we have rolled out Think 25, replacing Think 21. We believe that this will minimise underage in-person...