Evidence from Swansea University’s Gambling Research, Education and Treatment (GREAT) Centre featured in an influential House of Lords report recommending a comprehensive ban on gambling advertising.
Policy-led research expertise from the GREAT Centre and the Gambling Harms Research UK Evidence Centre was submitted as invited written evidence and features throughout the report released by the influential Liaison Committee.
Its findings recommend the Government implements the ban as soon as practicable the most effective policy for reducing gambling harm.
The report follows up the 2020 Select Committee inquiry into the social and economic impact of the gambling industry, focusing on advertising, marketing and sponsorship.
Director of the GREAT Centre, Professor Simon Dymond is co-lead of the Gambling Harms Research UK Evidence Centre, the UKRI-funded national centre for independent gambling harms research, in which Swansea is a partner alongside the universities of Glasgow, Sheffield, and King’s College London.
The Evidence Centre’s written submission is the single most heavily cited piece of evidence in the report, referenced in more than 110 footnotes – three times as often as the next most cited submission.
Research led by Dr Jamie Torrance, co-Director of the GREAT Centre, is described across several of the report’s key topics, including gambling logo exposure in Premier League broadcasts, shirt and kit sponsorship, and embedded promotion, comprehension of wagering requirements and financial inducements, the “free bet” label and the targeting of promotional offers, claims that advertising restrictions displace consumers to the illegal market, and emergent forms of gambling advertising and marketing.
The committee’s recommendations include:
- prohibiting gambling branding on shirts, kit and in and around sports grounds, extending this to training kits;
- a comprehensive ban on inducements;
- rejection of insufficiently evidenced claims about displacement to the illegal market; and,
- a regulatory framework for gambling advertising be placed on a statutory footing overseen by the Gambling Commission, alongside comprehensive bans on direct marketing and on operator content marketing on social media.
Professor Dymond said: “This report is a clear and welcome recognition that the evidence on gambling advertising harm is now overwhelming.
“We are proud our research has played such a central role in shaping the Committee’s findings. A comprehensive ban on gambling advertising, marketing and sponsorship is the single most effective step the Government can take to protect people from gambling-related harm, and we urge it to act on these recommendations without delay.”
Dr Torrance added: “Our research has tracked how gambling advertising and sponsorship have embedded themselves into the fabric of football, from shirt sponsorship to the language used around ‘free bets’ and promotional offers.
“This report rightly recognises that these practices normalise gambling and obscure its risks, particularly for young people and vulnerable groups.
“We also welcome the Committee’s clear-eyed rejection of unevidenced claims that restricting advertising simply pushes people towards illegal operators.”
