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A UK cross-party public policy think-tank is researching how to empower local authorities to tackle gambling-related harm, as a group of local leaders aims to convince the government to amend the 2005 Gambling Act to make it easier to refuse gambling licence applications.
The Social Market Foundation's (SMF) partnership with the London Borough of Brent was announced on Tuesday (June 17), the same day the BBC broadcast an investigation claiming that Adult Gaming Centres (ADCs) are failing to protect addicts, including evidence of self-excluded players being allowed to gamble.
Adult Gaming Centres are licensed gaming arcades that are eligible to offer various categories of gaming machines, including Category B3 machines offering prizes of up to £500.
SMF director Theo Bertram said the aim of the new research is “to measure the real social and economic impact of clusters of Adult Gaming Centres and, where there is evidence of harm, to develop policy recommendations that empower communities to reduce that harm”.
Brent Council has been joined by other local leaders across the country in its campaign to remove the so-called "Aim to Permit" rule, which councilors claim makes it hard for local governments and residents to refuse gambling licence applications for ADCs and other gambling venues.
Muhammed Butt, Leader of Brent Council, said: “Local leaders representing over 12m people up and down the country agree with Brent that our high streets can do so much better than betting shops and bookmakers.”
Commenting on the BBC investigation, the Gambling Reform All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), a group of UK MPs advocating for stricter gambling regulations, said it was concerned by the breaches of self-exclusion rules by AGCs as identified by the investigation.
“The Gambling Commission must take urgent action to hold operators accountable and ensure that robust self-exclusion protections are properly enforced,” the APPG said.
When asked about the SMF and Brent partnerships, the Gambling Commission told Vixio GamblingCompliance that it “wouldn't comment on how councils choose to take action on this”.
Earlier this year, the Gambling Commission said that following its advice to the government published in 2023, “when parliamentary time allows, it will introduce powers to enable local licensing authorities to conduct cumulative impact assessments”.
The regulators' comments were in response to an April 2 letter sent from Brent Council to Lisa Nandy, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, in which local authorities demanded more powers to refuse premises licence applications they fear threaten community welfare and safety.
