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Advice and guidance updates

Resources about gambling for parents and those working with young people

Following some recent enquiries about information for children and young people, LAs are reminded that a range of educational resources exists for those working with children and young people including:

YGAM (opens in new tab) (The Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust) is a national charity focused on education and informing young people about the consequences of gambling and gaming. A range of resources and workshops are available for those working with young and vulnerable people.

PSHE Association (opens in new tab) and GambleAware (opens in new tab) have produced a free teacher’s handbook How to address gambling through PSHE education (opens in new tab) as tool to support children and young people understand, and avoid, risks associated with gambling.

Demos (opens in new tab) have piloted and evaluated resources (available in English and Welsh) designed to build up the resilience of 14–15 year olds to the risks related to gambling the resilience.

Youth charity Fast Forward (opens in new tab) in partnership with GambleAware (opens in new tab) have produced free online resources and information about youth gambling, designed with and for practitioners who work with young people.

GambleAware (opens in new tab) has partnered with Parent Zone (opens in new tab) to produce videos, tools and guidance for parents and teachers aimed at supporting young people to stay in control of their finances and understand the risks of gambling.

The Commission has also produced some guidance for parents and tips for students who gamble.

The Commission and others have commissioned research into young people and gambling including:

How GAMSTOP applies to lottery operators licensed by the Commission

We recently announced that from 31 March all online gambling operators must participate in the multi-operator self-exclusion scheme GAMSTOP (opens in new tab), which will allow consumers to self-exclude from online operators with one request rather than from each operator individually

In terms of lotteries, the only lottery operators that need to participate in GAMSTOP (opens in new tab) are those licensed by the Commission who offer online Instant Win Games (and then only in relation to those games).

Online instant win games (IWGs) are games that are offered through a website where it is a requirement for the customer to have an account with the operator to play. Customers play these games online, with results confirmed instantly, and there is no physical scratch card sent to the customer.

In contrast, scratch card games are physical tickets and can be purchased from a retailer, charity etc. either remotely (over the telephone or via an online shop, where the tickets are then mailed out to the player) or in person.

It is only operators that are offering online IWGs that need to participate in GAMSTOP (opens in new tab). The sale of physical tickets via remote means is not included in the code provision for online multi-operator self-exclusion.

Any lottery operator that is considering offering online IWGs should contact GAMSTOP (opens in new tab) (support@gamstop.co.uk) for advice and support about what they would need to do to integrate before they started to offer online IWGs.

NB: This new GAMSTOP (opens in new tab) requirement does not apply to small society lottery operators.

William Hill and Reading PA

LAs are advised that William Hill now has a Primary Authority (PA) advice only partnership with Reading Borough Council (previously it was with Westminster City Council). As with all other gambling PAs, the partnership applies to policies and procedures relating to age verification only and not any other aspects of the Gambling Act.

Be aware of OUNs!

As preparations gear up for some of the big racing events, LAs are reminded that Occasional Use Notices (OUN) are designed to allow licensed betting operators to provide betting facilities at genuine sporting events, such as point-to point racecourses and golf courses for major competitions, within the boundaries of the identified venue on a specific date.

We are aware of a small number of instances whereby OUNs have been misused. Local sporting clubs, or other venues seeking to become tracks through a contrived sporting event, have utilised OUNs to solely or primarily facilitate betting taking place on events occurring away from the identified venue.

For example, a local hotel or club could seek to host a themed event coinciding with the Cheltenham Festival (March 10 – 13) and the Aintree Grand National meeting (April 2 – 4), claiming that a darts competition will be taking place at the venue thus permitting that a bookmaker could attend and accept bets on the darts event when in reality they will primarily be there to take bets on the horse-racing taking place elsewhere.

Please ensure that you contact your local compliance manager for advice if you should receive an OUN that does not relate to a genuine recognised sporting event.

LAs are also reminded that an OUN must be submitted for EACH day that the betting activity will be conducted on the premises. For example 4 notices for 4 consecutive days of betting and not one notice covering the 4 days.

More information about OUNs is available on our website.

Premises register data review

Thank you to those LAs that have responded to our requests to confirm that the information held in the register, is accurate and/or provide amendments.

We continue to work on cleansing the register which is compiled from gambling premises information submitted to us by LAs. If you have yet to receive any correspondence about this data cleanse exercise please contact our data management team who are coordinating the work datamgmt@gamblingcommission.gov.uk

LAs are reminded to use the correct statutory forms for notification of grants, variations etc to the Commission and other responsible authorities.

Updates on the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms

If you are interested in signing up to the latest developments on the National Strategy please email communications@gamblingcommission.gov.uk.

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Last updated: 21 December 2023

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