Banning big bets

The government’s review of gambling, designed to update gambling regulation for the digital age, has been long drawn out, derailed by distractions like partygate and much else. But a gambling White Paper is at last being ‘finalised’ and is expected to appear soon. And one of the proposals, a little bird tells me, is to limit the amount of money that punters can gamble online. This, the idea is, will prevent people from gambling more than they can afford online.

I should declare an interest — or lack of it: I don’t receive any money from betting companies, online or traditional. But I still think this is a very bad idea.

For a start, it tries to solve the problem that a few people have by putting restrictions on everyone, not just the few. We don’t tackle alcohol addiction by restricting the number of bottles that anyone can buy in the supermarket, any more than we combat heavy smoking by restricting how many cigarettes people can buy. Instead we use well-placed warnings, and ensure that resources — public and private — are focused on the few at most risk.

If you come into a windfall and decide to bet it all in an online casino, that should be your affair. But this proposal will stop large bets like this, even if they are infrequent or one-off. Remember too that some people make their living by betting — mostly by using their specialist knowledge to get the edge over other gamblers, and the gambling companies. So that is their livelihood effectively taken away.

And talking about livelihoods, 60% of online gambling operates from Gibraltar — a well-regulated British overseas territory. Preventing large bets, even from people who know what they are doing, will make a big dent in Gibraltar’s economy. It’s basically a rock, and apart from tourism, it hasn’t much else going for it. I can’t imagine that the Foreign Secretary would be particularly pleased by this prospect.

In fact, online gambling companies already have ways to deal with problem gamblers, methods that are far more subtle and effective than any government-designed blanket spending limit. Many companies allow customers to set their own limits, for example. And companies can (and do) use algorithms to detect when people seem to be overdoing things, and pause their gambling. After all, it is better for their reputation if they do this rather than let customers get into problems.

It’s certainly better that problem gamblers patronise responsible companies that can help them control their spending and maybe even advise on treatment for gambling addiction. Spending limits on everyone will simply drive them towards illegal and unregulated sites where they will have no such protection or help. Even responsible but large gamblers might well be prompted into the illegal sector too, if they find themselves blocked by legal companies. That will do them no good, only potential harm. 

The government’s proposal would require a big bureaucracy to police it, though no doubt it will try to load the cost onto the gambling providers. That just means less attractive odds for customers. But even so, government will need its own bureaucracy to check that the online gambling companies are actually and effectively setting the limits.

As I say, I haven’t taken the shilling of any gaming provider. Nor have they taken mine — I don’t gamble because I just can’t see the point, particularly of casino-type games. But I still think that this idea, if the government really is contemplating it, is an assault on all our liberties and will prove ineffective and indeed counterproductive in terms of its purpose.