Greenway says levy is still in the industry's hands

8 November 2007 - Coinslot article

The Responsibility in Gambling Trust Chairman John Greenway MP believes that the case for retaining the Trust’s voluntary funding arrangements should focus on the importance of enhancing the image of the gambling industry, despite obvious concern at the current level of funding.

In an exclusive interview with Coinslot John Greenway also argued that the decision on whether there would be a statutory levy was “in the industry’s own hands”.

“The Minister Gerry Sutcliffe, when addressing RIGT’s conference on prevention last week, again indicated that the Government was not yet committed to a statutory levy. So there is every opportunity for operators to demonstrate their willingness to provide all the funds RIGT needs to support a comprehensive strategy to tackle problem gambling.” Greenway said.

“We have an industry wide agreement for £4 million this year and I would urge all operators to honour this as quickly as possible. I have asked our Director Malcolm Bruce who successfully negotiated the voluntary agreement with the trade associations to write to all operators reminding them of their obligations.”

However Greenway clearly believes that the issue is about more than the money. He maintains that the review is a unique opportunity for the industry to re-establish its reputation for social responsibility and begin to recover from recent media hostility.

“In my view the continuation of the voluntary funding of our work and the support we give to GamCare as well as education and research should enable the industry to claim that it is meeting its social responsibility decisively.

“It was that positive approach to social responsibility which led the industry to establish RIGT five and a half years ago. I don’t want to see this initiative based on social responsibility hijacked by the Government setting a statutory levy. This would fundamentally damage the basis of our relationship with the industry and I believe that the major operators fully understand this.” Greenway is concerned that this point of view may not yet be shared by the smaller and medium sized operators many of whom have not yet contributed to the Trust’s work. So far only £1.7 million of the requested £4 million has been secured, mostly from the big bookmakers, BACTA and BCA members. Last week Gala Coral CEO Neil Goulden backed the Trust in a Radio 4 Today programme interview when he said that it was now time for the industry to pay up. There was no room for complacency about problem gambling despite the better than predicted outcome of the prevalence study, Goulden argued.

Greenway strongly agrees with this view. “The industry deserves credit for the work it has done both in funding the Trust and the socially responsible way in which many operators run their business. The challenge now is to reduce the number of problem gamblers and this means RIGT stepping up its work on prevention and public awareness. The Gambling Commission has a statutory objective in the Gambling Act to protect children and vulnerable adults, so the Commission needs certainty that the funding is working and that the organisational arrangements for ensuring the provision of treatment, education and research are the best they can be.” Greenway concluded.

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