These days, one of the most talked about topics when it comes to gambling is either some form of restriction or security.
Now, the Royal Society for Public Health has come to a decision to organize a Gambling Health Alliance and, at the same time, set stricter limits concerning online gambling.
Treating This Issue As A Health Problem:
Namely, Tom Watson MP, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party started this topic in his speech. RSPH shares his attitude towards this subject and they have already claimed before that this form of entertainment can be considered a public health issue.
Furthermore, the Health on the High Street report made by the Royal Society for Public Health accentuated that a lot of young people ages between eleven and sixteen are frequently exposed to betting.
Approximately, more than 400,000 of these youngsters spend a significant amount of money on gambling every week.
What Are They Going To Do About It?
The government are on course this year to implement a £2 maximum stake for fixed odds betting terminals and they are asking operators to determine the age of any user before they allow them to invest their money.
That means that this policy would restraint stakes in every segment of online gambling. Furthermore, they are doing this in order to prevent any potential negative effects and at the same time protect the health of the ones who are interested in this form of amusement.
The Importance Of The Gambling Act:
As we stated in the beginning, Tom Watson initiated this entirely new Gambling Act. What does it include?
There are several important items that are part of it and we will name all of them. First, they want to implement a system that is going to analyze affordability before a player decides to wager higher stakes.
The second one refers to staking limits on products connected to higher rates of problem gambling.
And the last one highlights the merge of online games into the existing categorization of gambling machines according to maximum stake and rewards.
Forming An Alliance:
At some point this year, RSPH will form the GHA with the help of GambleAware. The primary goal of this organization is to gather people and organization, as well as policy makers and to find a way to reduce potential damage caused by gambling.
Furthermore, they want to accentuate the concerns that are in correlations with gambling, stimulate policy makers, government, NGOs and the public health community with a goal to do something about this topic.
Moreover, they also want to promote evidence and conduct several surveys in order to raise awareness when it comes to negative effects gambling could potentially cause.
Niamh McDade, Senior Campaigns & Communications Executive at the RSPH stated:
“It is vital that regulations in the online world catch up with restrictions being introduced offline and we welcome the call to limit stakes in all online gambling.
With 18% of the population gambling online, we must ensure that we identify and understand all sources of problem gambling. We look forward to establishing the GHA this year to provide a forum for all relevant stakeholders to collaborate and increase our understanding of the range social, economic and cultural factors that contribute to gambling related harms.”
Source: “RSPG Backs Calls For Tougher Online Gambling Limits” https://europeangaming.eu/portal/press-releases/2019/03/05/40300/rsph-backs-calls-for-tougher-online-gambling-limits/. European Gaming. March 6, 2019.
