Gambling: Regulatory Reform

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Beccy Cooper (Worthing West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for securing this timely debate. It is interesting to hear different Members from across the House taking a stand on this issue. I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who has bet365 in his constituency; he spoke about his need to make sure his residents have good jobs, but also about how to balance those harms. It is interesting to hear how we can move forward with that.

I welcome the Government’s Budget announcements increasing remote gaming duty and general betting duty as a way to tackle some of our more harmful forms of gambling, particularly in online gaming. That is something that the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform and many Members across this House have championed—it is a cross-party issue.

This move from the Chancellor goes some way towards addressing the many billions of pounds that gambling harm costs the public purse. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities estimates that the public health costs of gambling in England alone are between £1 billion and £1.77 billion, but that figure captures only a subset of costs: it relies on self-reporting and the methodology does not include costs including secondary mental health services, alcohol and drug use, lost tax from employment and the cost of lives lost to gambling suicide.

Furthermore, the cost of gambling goes far beyond the individual themselves. For every person experiencing problem gambling, it is estimated that up to six others are affected—their families, children, employers and community members.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

On the point about the effects going beyond the person experiencing problem gambling, I was contacted by my constituent Chloe Long, who tragically and heartbreakingly lost her brother to gambling-related suicide last year. In his case, the challenge was not the regulated gambling industry, as we have been discussing; he was doing all the right things in terms of self-excluding and signing up to GamStop, but was still able to access the black market sites. We have to think more creatively about how we can solve that problem. Does my hon. Friend agree that there must be much more awareness out there of just how severe the risks of gambling addiction can be and of the devastating effect it can have, not just on the people we lose through it, but on their families, children and friends for decades to come?

[Dr Cooper]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Gambling has become ubiquitous in our society. It is endemic. We watch the television; we have online roulette in our pockets—it is everywhere. We must also be mindful of the black market as well as the legal gambling companies, and go after both with ferocity to make sure the harms are reduced.

Having established the need to recognise the public health costs of the most dangerous gambling products, we should review the taxation of other harmful forms of gambling, particularly the most dangerous category—the B3 machines in adult gaming centres. It is right that the duty paid by those machines is set at a higher rate. The Gambling Commission, which we have already heard about, must do more to ensure that licence conditions are followed by adult gaming centres. There are widespread reports of breaches of the rules, notably the 80/20 rule relating to the most harmful category of machine, and games that facilitate much higher stakes than is permitted in the licensing codes.

Let us be clear; gambling is highly profitable, and that profit cannot be separated from the harm inflicted. We have already heard this, but it is worth stating again: 60% of the industry’s profits come from 5% of customers who are either addicted or at risk.

English Football: Financial Sustainability and Governance

Laura Kyrke-Smith Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Yuan Yang]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who is an advocate for his local club, that too many clubs across the country are suffering from the unfair distribution through the football pyramid. In fact, that is the first issue I will describe: the problem with the money going in. The last four decades have seen a complete transformation in English football, which has been characterised by a widening gap between the clubs at the very top and the rest of the football pyramid. Ticket sales over that time have become less important as a source of revenue. Instead, the biggest source has become the multibillion-pound broadcast deals agreed by the Premier League.

We all celebrate the success of the Premier League�s dealmaking, generating the most revenue out of the big five European leagues. That dealmaking is notable for many reasons, not just the large amount of money involved. The 20 premier league clubs get together to sell a deal collectively. However, economists and competition lawyers have raised concerns about the impact that collective selling has on fans and smaller clubs, and they have argued that collective selling is justified only when there is a public benefit. However, most clubs do not currently benefit from these broadcast revenues. The vast majority stay in the premier league and, as a result, the gap between the top and the rest grows wider every season.

This season, premier league clubs and the four recently relegated clubs held on to 94% of the league�s broadcast revenues. That means that the remainder of the 68 clubs in the EFL received just 6%. In comparison, the German Bundesliga ensures an 80:20 split between the top two divisions. Meanwhile, the Union of European Football Associations�better known as UEFA�allocates 75% to the champions league and 25% to the two competitions below it. Those leagues have chosen those ratios because they find that it creates a sustainable pyramid for them. The EFL has long sought a similar distribution ratio with the premier league.

We want all clubs to work together to protect the pyramid as a whole because, without its base, the top of the game would crumble. As we all know, the pyramid serves as a platform for player development and talent spotting. Reading�s Michael Olise broke through locally and moved on to Crystal Palace, and I am sure that we can think of many such examples.

The national popularity of the premier league rests on our strong local football cultures, which are spread by clubs in their communities and the sports charities attached to them, working with people aged six to 60-plus. However, last year, the premier league and the EFL failed to agree a deal for a more equitable distribution of funding between clubs, underscoring just how sticky the first problem of income is.

The second problem is the money going out�the expenditure. Costs have been driven up to unsustainable levels. The concentration of riches in the premier league creates an overwhelming incentive to spend big and chase the dream. According to football finance expert Kieran Maguire, on average, for every �100 a championship club brings in through revenue, it spends �101 in wages. That is clearly unsustainable. Reading�s current owners, Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li, took over in 2017 when Reading was near the top of the championship. They also chased the dream. By 2021, Reading football club was spending over 200% of its annual revenue on player wages. Overall, Reading�s owners have invested over �200 million in the club. It is no surprise that they would spend at that level.

The NGO Fair Game has shown a clear correlation between how high a club is in the league and how high its spending is on wages. This competition is made more intense because of parachute payments, which I will not go into at length. However, overall, the pressure to compete means that clubs often spend beyond their means. This is unsustainable. We have spending rules such as financial fair play, but breaches continue to happen.

[Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about costs. One of the brilliant football clubs in my constituency, the Aylesbury Vale Dynamos, really struggles with the cost of keeping its ground maintained. It is at real risk of flooding, and the cost of dealing with that is huge. The other club in my constituency, Aylesbury United, has not had a ground in Aylesbury since 2006. Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the costs that they incur, having access to a secure and financially sustainable ground to play on is an essential part of the sustainability of vital grassroots football clubs?

[Yuan Yang]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has a deep interest in her local clubs. Fans need to be able to see their clubs perform in their local area. Many MPs who are in this debate have concerns about the relocation of their grounds or lack of appropriate grounds.

The final problem is ownership. The first two problems have shown how little incentive there is to be a well-run club that spends responsibly. Most clubs rely on a generous owner to stay afloat. When the good will or cash flow of that owner starts to run dry, clubs often have nowhere else to turn. Reading fans know the perils of this dependence. The current owners, the Dai siblings, put the club up for sale almost two years ago, but they have not been seen at the club in well over a year. Fans have mostly been kept in the dark. Credible bidders for the club�some of whom I have had the fortune to speak to�have made offers, and they have been turned down and dragged through lengthy negotiations. Bidders have faced difficulties in navigating the ownership structure of the club in which the stadium, the training grounds and the club itself have been separated into different corporate entities, and in which club assets have been used as collateral for other loans.