Tim Miller, Executive Director at the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), has stated that the Gambling Harms Action Lab will help collaborative efforts “to develop and improve existing practice and identify new ways to reduce gambling harms”.
A Money and Mental Health Policy Institute initiative, the Gambling Harms Action Lab is a three-year programme that will see the institute work with current account providers to improve gambling support for their customers. The initiative was launched at an event hosted by the institute on 5 November, with Miller speaking at the event.
The UKGC Director noted that the Action Lab will help to bring structure and focus to collaborative gambling harm support efforts between Money and Mental Health, the UKGC and the financial services industry.
Miller said: “I am delighted to be here for the launch of the Gambling Harms Action Lab. A few years ago Helen and I met in a coffee shop to talk about the potential positive role that the financial services industry could play in helping to identify and address the harms that some can experience as a result of gambling.
“The Gambling Harms Action Lab is a huge step forward in realising that potential, and one that builds on several years of innovative and impactful action in this space by individual financial services companies.”
Miller highlighted the efforts so far by the financial services industry to improve gambling harm support, such as gambling blocks from banks, which help to provide a “much stronger toolkit of protective measures” to customers alongside self-exclusion schemes.
However, he noted that more work needs to be done and that such harms can’t be tackled through one lens as “you risk not seeing the full picture or risk missing opportunities to protect consumers”.
The Director also brought attention to the UKGC’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain, which has helped to build its understanding of “the drivers and markers of gambling harm”, but he added that a single data set can’t provide a “definitive view” and that a range of perspectives are needed “to truly understand the complexities of gambling harms”.
“Financial services providing access to their anonymised consumer data has allowed us to work with Warwick Business School to start building that much richer understanding of how harms develop and how they can be addressed,” Miller said.
“Money and Mental Health have already played a vital role in helping to encourage the involvement of the financial services industry in this vital area of consumer protection work. The Gambling Harms Action Lab will help to bring some structure and focus to those collaborative efforts. And that focus will be important.”
Miller concluded his speech by asking those in attendance to keep the debate around gambling focused on the facts and evidence.
“The debate around gambling can be notoriously febrile at times with opinion and hyperbole often distracting from facts and evidence. Too often it leaves people arguing over word choice or tone rather than staying on task and working to make things better for consumers.
“As a regulator, and an official statistics body, we are doing all we can to raise the standard of the debate by remaining focussed on the evidence base. That is very much what I hope the Action Lab will be able to deliver – using the extensive understanding of consumer behaviours and experiences that financial services have to build an ever-stronger evidence base to identify consumer protections and interventions that actually work.
“So to those in the room today that are from the financial sector my message to you is “you may not be the cause of gambling harms but you have an amazing opportunity to be part of the solution. To work collaboratively to find creative ways of better protecting gambling consumers, consumers who are also your customers.” So please do not miss your chance to help make gambling safer.”
