The UK’s top five bookmakers have formed an ‘independent committee’ which will decide how best to distribute funds raised for problem gambling within the industry.Lord Chadlington, a Conservative party peer has been appointed to chair the committee by Flutter Entertainment (Paddy Power, Betfair), GVC (Ladbrokes Coral), William Hill, Sky Betting and Bet365.
Voluntary Contributions Raised
The top five have already shown commitment by raising the voluntary contribution of their gross gambling yield (GGY) to 1%. The voluntary contributions are set to reach £60M per year up to 2023.A GVC statement said,“ Lord Chadlington has been asked by the group to chair a Committee to define the most appropriate mechanism for receiving and administrating funds and for monitoring their deployment.“ Membership of the committee will be announced in September 2019 and it will publish its recommendations before the end of the year. Lord Chadlington and other appointed members of the committee will not be remunerated.”
Implement More Responsible Gambling Initiatives
Each operator will provide data on measures taken for safer gambling, implementing more responsible gambling messages on advertising and submit problem gambling data.None of the committee members will be paid for the work, with operators covering any administrative costs.All five operators are committed to a ban on advertising around live sporting events aired on TV, with a total ban proposed on broadcast advertising. In the future, they hope to see a total ban on all sponsorship advertising on football shirts, an initiative Paddy Power have already enforced through it’s ‘Save Our shirt Campaign’.A spokesman for the five operators said,“ We are absolutely committed to providing further funding towards treatment and other responsible gambling initiatives, and we believe the committee will identify and recommend how best to deploy effectively this investment.“ We believe this is an important step towards creating a safer gambling environment and look forward to reviewing and implementing its recommendations later this year.”