Apple, Facebook and Google must do more to stop children being exposed to gambling online

Tim Miller, Executive Director of the Gambling Commission
Tim Miller, Executive Director of the Gambling Commission

For parents there can be no more important responsibility than keeping our children safe and well protected. This is a duty that the Gambling Commission shares- it’s enshrined within legislation for us and the industry we regulate to protect children and other vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

It is a duty we take very seriously- through age verification checks on gambling websites; through ensuring gambling companies challenge people to prove their age or through working with our partners in local councils to carry out test purchasing to monitor whether age checks are working.

Strong, robust regulation of licensed gambling activities is, however, only one part of keeping children safe. Changing technology is bringing new threats from products and services that may not meet a legal definition of gambling but that have many of the same behaviours or characteristics.

Free to play casino-style games of the type highlighted by the Telegraph’s investigation are evidence of the gamblification of computer games. They are highly accessible and attractive to children.

Tim Miller, Executive Director of the Gambling Commission
Farm Dozer, a game considered appropriate for four-year-olds by Apple

They sit alongside side a range of other online products, such as loot boxes and so-called skins that are prevalent on social media and in video games.

These are products that may not in themselves be gambling in a legal sense, often because there is no way to cash out within the game, but products where there may still be risks to young people.

We have seen examples of children being able to spend huge sums of money, often on parents’ credit cards, buying items that can be used within these games.

Perhaps more worryingly, as today’s Telegraph investigation shows, some of these products are exposing children to gambling type activities- spinning a roulette wheel, playing a slot machine, games of chance- without any of the warnings or protections that we require licensed gambling operators to provide.

That is why the Gambling Commission wants to highlight them. We recognise the limitations regulation can have and the solution to this issue may not necessarily lie more regulation either by us or others.

Sega Slots, a game rates as appropriate for children aged 12 and above
Sega Slots, a game rates as appropriate for children aged 12 and above

Instead real success in protecting children comes when all of those with an interest or obligation work together. Our focus is therefore not just on using our regulatory powers in relation to licensed gambling but to raise awareness of the risks children may face from gambling or activities that might look like gambling and to work with others, especially parents, to address those risks.

In December we published our latest research on children and gambling. As well as exploring the relationship between young people and gambling it provided some important insights into the role that parents can play.

For instance, of the children that said they had gambled online, most had used their parents’ online gambling account to do this. Perhaps surprisingly 88% of them had done so with their parents’ permission.

A similar story was seen in relation to children that had played National Lottery products with 86% saying that their parents had handed over the money at the till for them. I don’t share these examples to berate or chastise parents. Like other parents I get bombarded with parenting advice on TV and through the pages of newspapers and would not appreciate a regulator telling me how to bring up my children.

What it shows is that there is a real opportunity for parents to work in partnership with us to talk to children about the harms that can come from gambling, harms that are perhaps not as well-known as those that come from other activities. It might surprise many parents to know our research shows that more children gamble than smoke or take illegal drugs, which might explain why less than 40% of children recalled discussing the risks of gambling with their parents.

The other key player in this child protection partnership is business and industry. We will keep challenging and requiring the companies we regulate to meet their obligations in this area- to continue building on the 500,000 occasions over a 12 month period where they stopped people who could not prove their age. However, as today’s story shows action should not just be limited to those businesses within the licensed gambling industry.

Those that provide platforms or products that give children their first taste of gambling type behaviours also have a responsibility.

Our research showed that children were almost twice as likely to gamble for real if they had previously played free-to- play gambling style games. So to the social media platforms, the tech giants, and the games industry our call is to work with us and play their part to protect children, to empower parents and to make the online world safer.

For many children these products may be their first experience of gambling type behaviours and activities. So let’s work together to address the risks young people face now and ensure that if they chose to gamble in adulthood they can do so in a way that is safe and harm free.

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