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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the progress made by bookmakers in reducing gambling-related harm.

This Government has been clear with the whole gambling industry that they are expected to demonstrate they are continuously improving player protection initiatives and evaluating the effects of previous initiatives. The Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) revised its social responsibility Code of Conduct in 2015. On 6 April the industry also launched the multi-operator self-exclusion scheme, which allows customers to self-exclude from all bookmakers at once.

In January, we published the Evaluation of Gaming Machine (Circumstances of Use) (Amendment) Regulations 2015, which can can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/evaluation-of-gaming-machine-circumstances-of-useamendment-regulations-2015. We are considering the findings of the evaluation before deciding if there is a need for further action.