A gambling white paper by Easter would be a turn-up for the books

theguardian.com:

The weariness was palpable as members of campaign group Gambling With Lives gathered in the Churchill Room at the House of Commons last Wednesday. The group, founded by bereaved parents whose children took their own lives after a struggling with a gambling addiction, has been waiting six years for an overhaul of UK betting laws. During this time, co-founders Liz and Charles Ritchie have met 12 ministers with responsibility for gambling policy.

A white paper outlining a proposed shakeup, promised since December 2020, has been repeatedly postponed, to the dismay of addiction clinicians and campaigners, who say despairing addicts are being failed by the current lax regulation.

But the wait may soon be over. New culture secretary Lucy Frazer (in the job just three weeks) promised the assembled families an overhaul of Labour’s ill-fated 2005 Gambling Act “soon”. They have heard that pledge many times, but Whitehall sources insist the white paper could, with a fair tailwind, be published before Easter. So what could it bring for Britain’s £10bn gambling industry, its customers and the people some would call its victims?

Maximum stakes on online slot machines, which are associated with elevated addiction rates, are likely to be restricted to between £2 and £5, bringing them into line with high street machines. Dan Waugh, of gambling research group Regulus Partners, says some operators, conscious of increased scrutiny, have already reduced the maximum stake. “It will be a revenue and profit hit, but less than it would have been a few years ago,” he says.

Reformist MPs believe they have won the political argument for a statutory levy on operators to fund addiction research, education and treatment, despite misgivings among some