iGaming Daily

Ted Menmuir (00:01.485)
Last week, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was criticised by local media and councillors for failing on his election pledge to ban gambling advertising from being displayed on the network of Transport for London. A local fallout interplays with the gambling review.

in which laws have been designed by the discretion of the UK Gamma Commission and DCMS. Nevertheless, local councils and city governments carry significant weight in how certain laws are determined within respective communities related to venues, advertising coverage and community advocacy.

Ted Menmuir (00:52.141)
man, okay. Did I write that? Yeah I did. Nevertheless, local councils, no. Nevertheless, local councils and city governments carry significant weight in how certain laws are determined within respective communities related to local venue licenses, advertising coverage, and community advocacy. iGaming Daily examines whether local concerns have been addressed in the generational review of UK gambling. I'm Ted Memwear.

and welcome me. I'm Ted Memwe and joining me today is the other Ted, Ted Orme Clay, editor of SBC News. Ted, how are doing?

Ted OC (01:32.782)
I'm all right, Ted. Yeah, not bad. Thank you very much. How about yourself?

Ted Menmuir (01:35.245)
Very well and before we begin a shout out to Optimove the number one CRM supplier for the global gaming industry and proud sponsors of the iGamingDaily podcast So Ted Let's yeah take us away with this why why has this kind of local news story catch your eye

Ted OC (02:00.183)
Cheers Ted. So yeah, mean, so start off with this story, there was the, in the article about this, we talked about the...

the story you mentioned of Sadiq Khan, how he's facing some pressure from the, I believe it was from the Green Party in the London Assembly to follow through with a electoral promise back in 2021 about London, sorry, gambling adverts on transport for London, particularly the Tube, I think. There's another element to it that I talked about further down where Liverpool City Council have launched a new initiative.

Ted Menmuir (02:10.177)
Mm-hmm.

Ted Menmuir (02:22.252)
Yeah.

Ted OC (02:32.319)
in partnership with Liverpool John Mawes University about tackling gambling harm and problem gambling in Liverpool. The reason I found these interesting and the fact that both came out in the same week was that I just think, I think that when we talk about legislation and regulation in the UK at least, obviously,

Ted Menmuir (02:32.416)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (02:50.559)
And for a very good reason, we focus mainly on the DCMS, don't we? The central government and the impact that decisions there have, decisions in Westminster, decisions in Whitehall, have on the gambling industry. But I think that there are developments at the local level and at the regional level that often don't get as much press, certainly maybe in B2B circles, that do actually have quite a significant impact or have the potential.

at least to have a more significant impact and I think may also be a way of kind of following public and political opinions about the industry and attitudes towards it that permeate down from know from from top from not just at the the central government level but yeah more that exist throughout the political spectrum you know

Ted Menmuir (03:37.728)
Yeah.

Ted Menmuir (03:41.469)
Yeah, I get it. It's complicated to explain, but I think what you're focusing on is kind of like the local interplay between, you your community insights versus what's happening in Westminster. Now, let's break that down here. you know, look, can local mayors interpret or provide any distinction on gambling laws applied to kind of local communities?

Ted OC (04:11.657)
Yeah, I mean obviously not to the same extent that like the gambling commission does for the entirety of the industry, but they definitely have a say locally in what can and can't be done by the industry in their areas or can you know put pressure on the right people who are in the right places, can make the

public statements about it can use their position of influence to try and push a policy in a certain direction. I mean, if we talk about local councils in general, quite a big impact would be on the retail betting sector, Like if a company wants to open a new shop in a different part of town on a high street, they'll have to get the local council's approval. And we have seen some cases over the past couple of years of pushback from local councils with support from certain members of their local community and community groups.

Ted Menmuir (04:31.628)
Thank

Ted Menmuir (04:42.583)
sure.

Ted OC (05:00.187)
about new betting shops being set up. I have a feeling there might have been something like that in Blackpool at one point and maybe I might have got the wrong town there but you we do see things like that happen and in Sadiq Khan obviously in his role as the mayor of London is probably the most influential most powerful local politician in the country really just into if you think about you know the financial power of London as an economic centre as a business centre as a consumer centre I don't know you're a London guy

Ted Menmuir (05:06.285)
show.

Ted Menmuir (05:26.029)
I mean, it's okay, but then when you, when you know, you break down, like, look, first thing to our European audiences is that unlike other cities in Europe, you know, local mayors are pretty new.

Ted OC (05:29.967)
No, you were what it worked. Do you am I talking nonsense here? What do you think of sadik?

Ted Menmuir (05:49.101)
Statute for UK politics and what we've been told is that their kind of focus is mainly on housing development Transport and this kind of broad brush of economic development which can that kind of apply to the heart to to You know Gaming establishments. It's not really clear on that front. But however, I mean going back to this story and particularly Sadik Khan is this

just because they, you know, he said this quote in 2021, and it was one of his kind of election pledges and it just hasn't been followed through.

Ted OC (06:29.197)
Yeah, mean, is fundamentally that's what this is down to. Yeah. He said that lies. You said he said back in 2021 when he was in the middle of a reelection campaign to be reelected as the mayor of London. The one of the things he wanted to do was get rid of gambling adverse on, as you said, transport for London networks. I think the London underground, the tube, as we all obviously like to call it. I think that was the real focal point of it. think that was something a lot of campaigners want.

to see adverts taken down from. I mean the tube is used by millions of people every day isn't it? So that's I think that that was the main focus point of concerns around exposure to advertising when people are commuting to work when you know children are going to school and things like that via the tube. That was one of the big talking points and yeah that hasn't been delivered but the reason the thing the response he gave to it was that he's waiting for the government

for more decisions to come from the government in Westminster before he makes a decision and obviously the position he's had he's been in is that in 2021 we were obviously in the middle of the gambling act review then we were also under a conservative administration which that review originated under the review was then published in 2023 the commission's been involved in all its consultations around that in the two years since and has been rolling out new recommendations and policies like the bonus new bonus requirements we talked about

Ted Menmuir (07:57.868)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (07:59.277)
in an episode recently.

And then of course last July there was the change in government with and I know that Labour have said that they are basically committed to seeing out the recommendations of the review and there's not really much of a change in policy but maybe just all these various changes over the year have given Sadiq Khan a bit of an incentive to think right I need to take a step back and just see what the bigger picture is here before I go ahead and try and push for a ban which I think he would be able to do because as Mayor of London he is chair of

Transport for London so he would be able to have a say in what on what their advertising policy is on what they and you know it's his own entity it can do it can advertise what it wants

Ted Menmuir (08:43.085)
I'd like to see actually legal provisions for that because I mean maybe yes I think he's got a voice on the planning and kind of the economic strategy of transport for London but I'm not sure that actually applies to how the advertising is controlled for that network so it's yeah but but then again I mean maybe if you if he were to share the sanction of ban I mean does that take it through to kind of the legal courts in how

Ted OC (09:00.789)
Okay, so that might be a different person's responsibility.

Ted Menmuir (09:11.091)
advertising works at that display level.

Ted OC (09:16.749)
Yeah, I mean, I think we're going on to things here that I'm not, I've not got a huge grasp over. I think illegal, I think it'd be interesting to see what, if he was to say, right, I'm gonna go for a ban, a ban on advertising, gambling advertising on the tube, on London buses, overground, whatever. It'd be interesting to see what, there would be any pushback from the industry on that, like how much.

How much value do think companies would place on these adverts? you think that would that be enough for them to want to fight this? I think that'd be interesting to see how it plays out, but yeah, we haven't got a crystal ball as the saying goes, but it's still interesting to see.

Ted Menmuir (09:46.935)
Sure.

Ted Menmuir (09:51.671)
Well, yeah. Well, we're going to go into the second part of the iGaming Daily when we come back and we're going to talk about local advocacy in gambling. Stay tuned.

Ted Menmuir (10:08.329)
And we're back and here speaking to Taddle and Clay on the recent local fallouts on gambling in the UK. okay, let's take it to kind of a wider picture. And so much of the past four years focused on advocacy, on, you know, local engagement, local feedback.

Shouldn't stakeholders be kind of welcoming this as part of the review that there is a local engagement in gambling and how gambling is displayed to public?

Ted OC (10:49.364)
Yeah, absolutely.

Any industry should be placing quite a high value on engaging with local stakeholders, right? Whether it be political or business or just community ones or whatever. You need to uphold good relationships with people from various different fields and backgrounds and so on in order to have a sustainable business, right? And I think, especially let's talk about the retail side of betting, where a lot of betting shops do sort of sell their proposition of being like, we're part

of the local community. You know, go down the high street, there's a local CAF, a local newsagents, local bookies, local pub. It's sort of part of that network. And when that premise, you know, when it's sold on that premise...

Ted Menmuir (11:23.319)
Sure.

Ted OC (11:37.75)
It's therefore very important you keep up with local feeling, particularly some, you know, in some cases that local feeling might not be entirely favorable towards the industry when there's been, you know, this industry has been at the receiving end of a lot of negative headlines over the past couple of years. There's been a lot of highly publicized regulatory and legislative reviews. You know, you've had instances of like record financial penalties that have been handed out for breaches that have occurred in some of these community betting shops around social

responsibility and AML and so on. So yeah it's absolutely critical that the industry engages all stakeholders and then this then links in with the kind of political point we were making earlier that local councils, local mayors, local government in any form can be maybe not as much of a significant stakeholder as say the DCMS and the UK GC obviously but can still play its part and can still have some influence both on public opinion and wider policy and

and making small changes that may not be as big as ones at the sort of central level, but can still have an impact on the industry. I feel like I'm rambling a bit here, but you see where I'm going with that.

Ted Menmuir (12:49.653)
Yeah, okay, okay. I mean, again, you know, looking at this kind of interplay of how do operators and not just talking about the high street itself, but the online operators, I mean, what should their kind of concerns be when targeting local audiences or community based audiences with these campaigns? I mean,

you know what? I'll kind of the safeguards there but also When you're doing, know, who is advertising on Transport for London in on the buses

Ted OC (13:29.793)
That's question for you Ted, I don't know, who have you, you get the tube more than me, who have you seen on there? I have seen, I've seen adverts when I've been down there, I've seen adverts shared on the internet and so on, I can't, you know, to I can't name a specific company off the top of my head. But I have seen them on there.

Ted Menmuir (13:31.379)
But I mean, yeah.

Ted Menmuir (13:44.854)
Yeah.

No, I mean, I guess I'm trying to reflect on what is kind of like that impact of advertising and it's actually quite an analog method to do it. But do you think that? Yeah, it is. It is.

Ted OC (13:57.582)
Yeah, it's a bit dated, you'd think.

Ted Menmuir (14:04.343)
Do you think, how does this kind of play out? mean, do think that the advertising public space is, will this remake go back to the gambling review? Do you think that there'll be kind of a centralized decision in this taking it away from your local councils?

Ted OC (14:18.741)
Yeah, eventually if the public, if pressure continues to mount and I guess it's if it gets raised in Westminster that's the main thing isn't it, is if it steps up from, we've seen it debated in the London Assembly recently, obviously with what we talked about today with Sadiq Khan.

Ted Menmuir (14:33.229)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (14:37.257)
If we then see that debate re-raised in Parliament, that's when it becomes more significant because ultimately Parliament is the one that will make the decision that impacts the industry as a whole, not just something a little advertising stipulation in London, something that would affect the industry as a whole as to whether or not it can advertise in public spaces. A bit like we've seen in Belgium and the Netherlands have obviously brought in these restrictions on advertising which have banned it in public spaces like billboards.

Ted Menmuir (15:07.073)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (15:07.211)
bus stops and things like that. Although you like you said I wonder I'd be interested to see how much of an impact these adverts have on engagement anyway as to whether they're a bit dated and analog like we've said and whether the main focus of the best marketing and advertising operators have is on like social media, online, television advertising, sports marketing that sort of stuff. But yeah whether or not

Whether or not a decision on its future as a whole will be made will depend on whether it gets raised in Parliament. At the moment I don't think that will happen because like we've said I think the Labour government is pretty committed to just seeing off the recommendations of the Gambling Act review. This is something that would probably be raised much further down the line I think, probably after the dust has settled from the review's recommendations.

Ted Menmuir (15:47.042)
Yeah.

Ted Menmuir (15:55.917)
Have any reformists said where they feel that this type of kind local advertising is intrusive or harmful? Because there are rules to it as well. mean, it's, you know, yeah.

Ted OC (16:05.549)
Yeah, that's an interesting... I like most debates we've seen around this in the past couple of years, I'd imagine the kind of advertising that most concerned about would be ones that are seen mostly by young people, right? It's whether like, yeah, people going to school and college or maybe even people who are over the gambling.

Ted Menmuir (16:23.565)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (16:30.093)
who are of age to gamble but are considered to be in a bit more vulnerable demographic because of financial risks and so on, like 18 to 24 year old students and so on. It'll probably be advertising that people feel is more, that exposes these groups the most. you see what mean. I feel like that would be the main talking point, surely. Or potentially as well, advertising that happens to be in a lot of...

Ted Menmuir (16:49.431)
Yeah.

Ted OC (16:57.995)
like underprivileged and more impoverished communities.

like low-income areas, people often see us a bit more predatory. mean, there's often been a talking point thrown around back on the retail side of things over the past few years that you often find lots of betting shops in areas that have lower incomes. I think like Blackpool, example, like a wrench you referenced earlier is often given as an example of that. this is a sticking point, I think, for lot of reform advocates.

Ted Menmuir (17:04.781)
sure.

Ted Menmuir (17:31.777)
So Ted, your final kind of takeaways, because you're kind of reviewing how this story plays out. It's nuanced, it's specific to, so what's your kind of follow up to audiences on this? Where do think this goes for the industry?

Ted OC (17:50.751)
I'd just say, I think my final point, we don't underestimate the potential influence or significance of the local stakeholders, of local government mayors and so on. I said, changes might be, changes and pressure might be smaller than we see coming out of Westminster or coming from the commission, but it can all add up. I'd say the other thing from it is that it can, as we said, it can be indicative of public trends and more like opinion on the ground.

as opposed to the more lofty heights of government at Whitehall.

And another thing I'd probably say is that if we're just going to focus in on mayors and people in those sort of positions, these guys can often have quite big political futures ahead of them. So gauging what their opinion is at the moment could be, you know, if they have a more influential position down the line, their opinions will affect the industry even more. mean, know, Sadiq Khan is mayor of London. He's actually, on top of that, he's quite a influential politician in Labour generally.

Ted Menmuir (18:49.858)
Mm-hmm.

Ted OC (18:55.317)
Boris Johnson was course Mayor of London and look at the position he ended up finding himself in, you know. Andy Burnham, obviously I'm currently in Manchester, Andy Burnham who's Mayor of Manchester is quite an influential guy in Labour, quite a popular guy in Labour and he ran for leadership a few years ago, didn't he? So the politicians in some of these big, very significant cities can be quite influential people and their opinions on the industry.

Ted Menmuir (18:58.047)
Who could forget him?

Ted Menmuir (19:04.141)
Yeah.

No, it's... yeah, it's...

Ted OC (19:19.693)
might not affect it as a whole now but you never know whether they could it could do five ten years down the line.

Ted Menmuir (19:23.575)
Yeah.

Thanks for your time Ted.

Ted OC (19:33.879)
Cheers to it.

Ted Menmuir (19:41.143)
Duh.

Ted Menmuir (19:53.697)
Well, that's all for our gaming daily. Ted, it's been fantastic to talk to you and to our audiences. Thank you.