Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to safeguard children against exposure to gambling opportunities associated with (a) in-app and (b) in-game purchases on gaming consoles and mobile devices.

Protecting children and the vulnerable from being harmed or exploited by gambling is a core objective of the Gambling Commission, as the regulator for gambling in Great Britain, and a priority for the government. There are also strong protections in place for children who play video games.

The Pan European Game Information (PEGI) ratings system used to classify video games, will not award ratings to products that allow gambling, significantly restricting their ability to be sold in the UK. Where a game contains elements that could teach or encourage gambling like behaviour, it will be awarded a minimum PEGI 12 rating and will also have a gambling pictogram label applied to alert parents to the content.

Additionally, most video games and mobile platforms come with a range of parental control tools that can include allowing parents to block games based on PEGI age ratings, disable in-game purchases and monitor and place limits on use. PEGI provides more information here https://pegi.info/parental-controls.

Where licensed online gambling is offered, operators are required to verify the age of a consumer before they can deposit money and gamble, or access free-to-play demo games.

The Gambling Commission has strong powers and has shown it will take action where there are breaches of the rules - in 2017, it successfully prosecuted the FutGalaxy website for offering illegal gambling with in-game items – known as skins gambling.