At CARE, our vision is not just to see ‘Politics Renewed’, but also to see ‘Lives Transformed’. But sometimes it takes years to fully see the effect of how Policy work - which is often conducted in the background - later translates into helping people to flourish, as God intends them to.
The gambling industry disproportionately affects people from disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK. Betting shops and gambling machines are 10 times more likely to be located in areas of deprivation. And the industry repeatedly targets those who are affected: somewhere between 65% and 86% of gambling companies’ profits is collected from 5% of accounts.
Of course, it is not just those gambling who are affected: according to a 2019 study published in the British Medical Journal, for every person in gambling harm, it is estimated that another 5 to 10 people are directly or indirectly impacted, including spouses and partners, children, employers and the wider community.
But the online world has also radically shifted the gambling landscape, and amplified the difficulties someone addicted to gambling faces. Before the rise of internet betting, people could only place a bet when a betting shop was open. Now the online shop never closes.
Self-exclusion is a widely-accepted mechanism for protecting people from betting shops; if someone is concerned about their gambling habits they can request not to be served by that gambling provider for a minimum of six months. But self-exclusion did not work online. With hundreds of gambling sites available at a click of a button, it would have been impossible for people to remove themselves from every website.
At CARE, we argued for the creation of a single tool that enabled people to register their self-exclusion with the Gambling Commission. During the passage of the Gambling Licensing and Advertising Bill CARE worked with parliamentarians to provide such a scheme.
Lord Browne of Belmont said: “I am extremely grateful to CARE for proposing the MOSES [multi-operator self-exclusion] amendment to me and for working closely with me until we reached the point of success. If it was not for CARE developing the Amendment MOSES would not be rolled out across the UK…CARE has achieved a very important public policy success that will help some of the most vulnerable in society.”
The MOSES amendment mandated the Gambling Commission to make provision for a multi-operator self-exclusion tool, which became GAMSTOP, which is delivered by the Remote Gambling Association. Under GAMSTOP, which was launched in 2018, users can choose to self-exclude for periods ranging from between six months to five years, and all licensed gambling websites would not be entitled to contact them.
This year, the number of people who have registered and been helped by GAMSTOP reached over 500,000. January 2025 was the busiest month on record, with almost 10,000 people signing up in a single month. Of those surveyed in GAMSTOP’s 2024 Evaluation, 75% of users said that they felt in more control of their gambling as a result of GAMSTOP, and 80% would recommend it to a friend.
And real people’s lives are being changed. Jamie* began gambling in 2012 back at the age of 18. He managed to self-exclude himself from his local betting shop when he was 19, but continued to gamble online. He had regularly spent his weekly pay package by the following morning, and estimated that 75% of his monthly earnings were being spent on betting. Eventually he registered with GAMSTOP in 2020, and cut himself off from the gambling industry for good. Since then, he has become a keen ultra-marathon runner, and credits GAMSTOP for being able to move on from his gambling addiction.
Similarly, David* began gambling when he was 16, and transitioned to gambling online when he was 19. He gambled for more than ten years, finding it ever more addictive. He commented, “I would wake up every morning wondering when I would be able to bet and how I would get the money. I would look forward to payday every month so that I could bet more and if I didn’t have the money before then I would take out payday loans and would always find a way to get some money to gamble.” When he was 26, he gambled away £8,000 in one hour, and within a few days, had lost his entire life savings of £31,000. Eventually, one of his friends told him about GAMSTOP. He later described it as “the best thing I have ever done.” He now hasn’t gambled in four years, works as a teaching assistant, and does outreach work for the group ‘Gambling with Lives’, visiting schools, youth groups and sports clubs to raise awareness of gambling harm.
*Names have been changed