Regulator tells operators to believe in better responsible gambling or quit

Anyone working in the gambling sector who believes the number of people harmed by gambling cannot be reduced should "find another job" according to the chief executive of the Gambling Commission.

Neil McArthur also told the industry that the fault for the negative headlines bombarding them lay with operators themselves and not with the industry regulator.

He was addressing figures from across the industry at a gambling conference organised by law firm CMS in London on Wednesday.

McArthur told the audience that confidence in gambling was down, with the percentage of the population agreeing that gambling was fair and could be trusted falling to 30 per cent in 2018 from 49 per cent a decade earlier.

"I think we will only see an increase in consumer confidence if we see a drastic reduction in the numbers of people suffering gambling-related harm," he added.

"Some commentators have suggested that 340,000 problem gamblers is a glass floor that can’t be broken through. If you think that we cannot reduce the number of people experiencing gambling related harm, you need to find another job.

"There is a saying: if you believe you cannot do something, you’re right. So, if you believe nothing can be done, you have already failed. Your mindset is wrong and that self-limiting belief means that you are going to struggle to make progress. So if you cannot change your mindset you need to go and do something else and make way for other people."

The gambling industry has been beset with critical headlines since the turn of the year over issues such as VIP schemes and its relationship with football, while the commission has also announced that gambling using credit cards will be banned from April.

Picture for online gambling stories

McArthur said he believed there was a consensus building about what was needed to improve the industry's standing.

However, he asked: "Are the bad news stories about gambling the commission’s fault? Maybe – but the solution sits with operators, not me.

"In 2017, we introduced a much tougher compliance and enforcement regime. We did that because we needed to significantly change the behaviour of operators and those who run them.

"There were far too many failures, too many repeated instances of lessons not being learned and – frankly – standards were not good enough.

"I realise that each press release we put out adds to the weight of negative stories but it's not my job to create positive stories or suppress bad news stories.

"The cure lies in having good news to tell and not having bad news stories of compliance failures to publish in the first place."

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