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Deemed to be reaching its final stages, the gambling review takes another turn as UK councils demand that the government intervene in imposed localised controls on gambling venues. DCMS has received a stern message from 38 councils and two mayors to revise the gambling review and provide councils with new controls on advertising, billing permits, authorisations and limiting B3 machines. Councils are making their voices heard at a point of inflection of the UK gambling as the statutory levy is applied from April onwards. during which the NHS and stakeholders seek greater participation from councils and communities in addressing problem gambling harms. I'm Ted Memwear and joining me today, Ted Aunklay, editor of SBC News. Ted, how are doing? I'm very well, thank you, Ted. Yeah, just come back from a couple of days off. Good to be back in the studio with you to kick my slightly delayed working week back off again. And I'd to notify audiences that you've celebrated your birthday. Happy birthday. Yeah. Thank you. Turning 28. 30 years just approaching looming on the horizon. Okay. Yeah. It's brilliant. And before we begin, shout out to our sponsors Optimoof, the number one CRM in marketing solution for the global gaming industry. So Ted, let's kick off and man. My first observation is like things have escalated pretty quickly on this story, right? Yeah. I mean, obviously we first talked about this on a podcast a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? I'm not talking about the- Yeah, not even, yeah. Yeah. So even to say a couple of weeks ago is me overstating things. Yeah. Which was obviously about the London assembly, wasn't it? TfL, Specifically in London, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of Greater London has- been facing a bit of pressure from some other London assembly members. I think it was specifically a member of the Green Party who are calling on him to make good on an election promise from 2021 where he mapped out a plan to curb gambling advertising on the Tube, which is something he could have some influence over because as mayor of London, obviously he's the political leader of London, but he's also the chairman of Transport for London. Although again, as we said on that podcast, wherever it was like eight days ago or something, just because he's the chair of transport for London, it doesn't mean he necessarily has the absolute power to say, right, we're getting rid of gambling advertising because there'll be different laws and rules and policies around that. So anyway, we had that to start with, was kind of bringing local government into focus a little in this conversation we've been having about gambling regulation and legislation in the UK for the past, what, three or four years. And then just a few days after that, we had the health and social care committee of the house of commons had a, had a hearing, didn't it? Had a, yeah, a public call for evidence where they had some people from local health authorities from researchers like from the university of Glasgow. Um, I think public health Nottingham were represented there, weren't they? Um, waving the flag for my hometown, guess. Um, you know, yeah, doing all right in the premier league and on public health by the sounds of things. And then the NFC Tim Miller from the gambling commission was there as well, of course. And one of the things that got raised during this debate among many different things from like sports sponsorships, player protection, was a perceived imbalance of power, as I believe the researcher from the University of Glasgow put it, between local councils and the betting industry around advertising in their areas and shops in their areas. And then the following day after that, we had the news that you mentioned in your intro where Brent Council, I believe it's Brent, are leading a coalition of 38 other local governments, including several London boroughs, I believe, and two mayors. One of these mayors is Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, who is quite a well-liked figure within the Labour Party, I think that's fair to say, and is a former leadership candidate. So it's really, as you said, it's really snowballed from just this initial spat in, for want of a better term, in the London Assembly to now there's a campaign of councils calling for gambling reform just coming on as the Gambling Act review recommendations are being adopted as well. essentially, you know, you tell the audiences is that three kind of narratives are kind of intertwined into one and the focus here now is on councils. But let's focus on Friday's story and, you know, what are the developments there and what were the council's statements and demands to DCMS? They want to see local councils and local government be given more power around the gambling sector basically in terms of how they interact with it and how they can limit it really. think one of these, obviously one of the most obvious ones is retail betting, right? They see there being, as that professor put it in the panel earlier on in the week, a bit of an imbalance of power between them and the industry. A common viewpoint is that when they challenge the opening of a new betting shop, the betting companies can just take it to court and they often have access to more resources than especially the big public listed companies with lots of revenue will have more resources in the council. Councils also obviously have many other matters to contend with, so they just don't have the time or resources to fight this in court. I think they want to see more powers given to them to just be able to effectively effectively block the opening of new shop to regulate advertising and marketing in their areas. Maybe that'd be like billboards and think adverts on public transport and so on. Another thing was about was to do with the RET levy. know, well, they said we want to see a statutory levy, which I thought was an interesting point in there considering that is guaranteed under the gambling act really white paper, but maybe they just want to reiterate it and probably want to try and push to the narrative that the RET levy should go to support local causes and local campaigns around gambling harm and prevention. We'll get to the RET levy because it does intertwine with what the expert was saying that is needed at a local level. let's look at your journo's eye on this, Ed. As a story, I mean, it had all the juicy bits of a story kind of demanding a local intervention that claimed that we're now being inundated by 24-hour slot shops. And that apparently we've grown an exposure of over 200,000 B3 gaming machines on the high street. So there's a lot of backlash being directed at DCMS for not conducting a review at a local level. Yeah. mean, some of these talking points are going back years anyway, aren't they? I the one about B3 gaming machines, that goes back probably like a decade or so, surely. And you had obviously the... £2 stake limit on FOB 2 machines back in 2019. Yeah, that was quite a significant one. I mean, it's often quite, it was a term I remember at the time being thrown around a lot in the media on tabloids and on the BBC and so on of these machines getting described as the crack cocaine of the retail high street as being like a very highly addictive and potentially dangerous product. I think this concern that the councils have raised about this shows that this opinion hasn't really gone away despite the £2 limit and despite some of the reforms of the gambling act review as well. And I think overall it just still is indicative of continuing frustration among local councils and local mayors and some politicians in general about the way they interact with the industry and I think it's very indicative of what is becoming an increasingly strange relationship between the two. And like what you said, Ted, perhaps a feeling that the gambling act review was too macro in its approach and has not focused enough on the concerns of local stakeholders and the importance of like a localized approach, particularly to dealing with gambling harm. So, okay, let's focus here on these concerns and... One thing that was mentioned was the imbalance in power between local councils and the gambling industry in which six reforms have been proposed to DCMS. can you detail more on what the councils want for the gambling community to cover? Well, firstly is, as we talked about earlier, they want to see a change to planning applications. I guess I should kind of reappraise what I said earlier. It's less like a power to block. just outright. They don't want the power to just say, don't want any betting venues or gaming venues in our area. It's more to change the considerations of how planning applications are considered. So they want to be able to consider levels of household debt in their local area and to curb the prevalence of gaming venues near schools, like probably to set up some kind of... exclusion zone perhaps around schools where they'll say no betting shops, no slot arcades, no amusements, things like that. I think the inclusion of household debt on there is interesting because this is again, this is an argument that's been going back for decades in the UK where it's seen that betting shops and arcades are more likely to open in lower income areas, which a lot of critics view as predatory. I think obviously an industry counter argument to this would be that they're opened on high streets in these areas because rent is cheaper. and like cash use is higher. Whilst in more wealthy areas people might be more likely to gamble via the internet or on their phones. Anyway, moving on from that, there is another aspect here that's a bit more stricter I think where they want to be able to reject license applications that are seen as a threat to community welfare. I think that would obviously then be an extension of the consideration of household debt levels and like how many schools are there, perhaps how many young people are there, like the demographics of an area. Uh, the third one is advertising. They want to be able to prohibit gambling advertising and sponsorship in their areas. You know, like, Bill, like what said earlier with, um, perhaps like billboards and marketing and things like that. I don't know whether that would really impact sports sponsorships or not. You know, like whether if a football club is included under a local council area, there could be a potential conflict of interest there. But I think obviously the football teams would be governed under the, um, nationally set. requirements, wouldn't they? So it's important to kind of draw a line between the two here. Before we just get into our ad break, this is very late in the game, related to the Gammon review. mean, do you think that there's going to be any movement or any traction on what the councils want? Not yet, no. I think the government has said repeatedly that it is committed to just carrying out the recommendations and... and policies of the Gambling Act review. want to see off what their conservative predecessors started basically. The gambling commission has already been engaged in various consultations, hasn't it, over the past year, two years really. yeah, I you could argue that was their chance, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. I think they may have missed the boat slightly. I think we could potentially see some changes, but it will be much further down the line. think they're going to have to wait for the Gambling Act review. recommendations to be put into place and then just start from square one really. They will have a difficult job in getting any changes immediately simply because we've just come, know, the gambling act review itself took what, two and a half years, concluded in 2023. The consultations and policy applications that resulted from that have been taking a further, what, two, yeah, nearly two years now. In fact, no, it is two years, isn't it? It got published in April 2023. So that's been taking over two years for it to be adopted. But I don't think the government or the industry will be very keen on the idea of initiating yet another probably quite lengthy review. I think the local stakeholders concerns will be heard, but much further down the line. Thanks, Ted. And when we come back, we're going to review how these local council kind of interplays with the wider hearings we saw last week. Okay, Ted. Now we're back talking about the council concerns and Council pushing for reforms. But last week, these were kind of played out against the hearings from the select committee on gambling arms. Now, the levy is going to be applied from this April. And what are kind of the experts advice on implementing a population level wide policy for safer gambling? Well, as we heard in the hearing last Wednesday, They really want to see a localised approach with a big focus on supporting local health authorities, local charitable initiatives, perhaps with the setting up of workshops, community outreach, treatment and rehabilitation centres locally. Probably based justifiably and quite logically I think on the idea that local health stakeholders will know the needs of their community better than a government. than the government in Westminster, right? Than some civil servants in Westminster or something like that. So that was a key recommendation. And I think part of that would include probably a greater role for local councils in helping determine where funding will be delivered to, what areas, particular topics or projects it will be funneled towards. So that was really one of the key takeaways from that session was talking about the significance of the local aspects. think if we're going to cast the net a bit wider here, it's interesting really that we're seeing local considerations now raised in to parliament. We're seeing local stakeholders getting a lot more vocal about this. Because in the UK, the way the industry is regulated is very much a national basis, right? It's governed by the policy set by DCMS. laws applied that's passed and applied by parliament and the UK Gambin Commission being the body that enforces and oversees these frameworks and laws. It's interesting when you contrast it to other countries like Spain and Italy for example where local and regional governments have a lot more of a say in things don't they from what I understand anyway I think like land-based gaming in Spain is quite heavily regulated by local stakeholders and it can differ. from region to region, whilst online betting is regulated nationally. So I think it's interesting in the UK, we're now seeing local considerations being stepped up and heard a lot more. And from what I saw in the committee meeting last week, in the recordings we watched of that, I think a lot of the MPs on that were very receptive to the idea of of local stakeholders, whether that be local government or researchers and charities and so on, being given more of a say in how this RET level is going to be administered. I mean, as the experts say, they view the community as being the first point of intervention or to spot that someone has gambling harms. And I think it sounds good on paper, but it's much harder to apply in practice. then another factor here that we're seeing with the gambling review is that this yet to be kind of settled on its determination for how to modernize land-based gaming venues. Now, do you think that there's going to be a local clash on that? that's an interesting question. Yeah, that's very hard to say. I think we will definitely continue to see local pushback against land-based gaming across certain areas. I mean, the fact that 38 councils have clubbed together in this coalition. shows that concerns are very widespread across the country, right? And lots of councils have a lot of opinions in common about this. And there is definitely a, you know, there's a big difference of opinion or a difference of approach between the national and the local politician on this, I think. I think obviously the national politicians and leadership have got priorities of seeing, like I said, seeing out the gambling act review, enacting things on a macroeconomic level. and seeing that disseminate down to the community and local level, local stakeholders, it looks like feel they haven't been factored into these deliberations around it enough and want a greater say. So yeah, I do think we will continue to see clashes of opinions between the local government, national government and the industry moving forward. you think that some sort of kind of localised engagement is good for the gambling review, just for the final kind of proceedings of it? Yeah, definitely. think all stakeholders' opinions need to be considered and everyone needs to feel like, at least feel like their opinion has been heard and they've been able to have their say and have some input in how this is. Because otherwise people are just going to be dissatisfied and disillusioned with the final product, aren't they? With how it moves forward. If they don't feel like they've been included in it and their concerns have been aired, that final implementation is not going to be... they're not going to that well, no matter what it is, if they feel they've not had a seat at the table. I think it's very important for the industry to engage with local government and stakeholders as well. think the cooperation, not confrontation, is probably the best approach really to ensure the sustainability of it. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that this is, it throws kind of a spanner. in the final kind of proceedings of the gambling review. again, I think just to finalize here, it's so easy to say that, you know, we want a review that satisfies everyone, but that's just that outcome is just, you can't achieve that. So obviously there's going to be one or two stakeholders kind of left out. And at one point you have to settle on a framework and we'll see how kind of proceedings go. Ted? Happy birthday. No, thanks for joining me on this podcast. And you've really, really gone to town with reporting on this narrative. And let's see how it plays out. And to our audiences, thank you for joining us today.