Betting the house

When Philip Davies MP submitted a complaint against one of my campaign’s adverts, something didn’t seem quite right. I work for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, and we recently started the Stop the FOBTs campaign to argue the case for a stake reduction on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals: the roulette machines in betting shops capable of taking bets of up to £100 every 20 seconds.

Back in December, the Telegraph reported that Philip Davies MP, acting as the secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Betting and Gaming, had submitted a complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about one of our adverts. The complaint contested a number of assertions about FOBTs, such as referring to them as “the scourge of the high street”, identifying their “addictive roulette content”, that they are known as “the crack cocaine of gambling”, that “thousands of families” are affected by addiction to FOBTs, and that they amount to “exploitation of poorer communities”.

With some ease, we were able to provide evidence to back each claim in our advert, and so the ASA rejected every single one of Philip Davies’ complaints – complaints  that we soon found out were submitted not in his role as secretary of the APPG on Betting and Gaming, but in a personal capacity.

Last year, FOBTs were worth £1.4bn in profits to bookmakers, and with a fixed margin they are a license to print money. We recently commissioned polling in Newham, one of the poorest boroughs in London, which found that the average bet per spin – per 20 seconds – is £17, and the average amount put into FOBTs per session is £55. The poorest are putting in over £100 a time.

MPs like Philip Davies don’t appear to care about representing people. Instead, it seems they’d rather represent the interests of corporations in Parliament, at the expense of some of the most vulnerable in society. As someone who became addicted to gambling at the age of 16, I find it totally bemusing that an MP would be able to rationalise defending an industry that has shown itself to be socially irresponsible and exploitative.

Back in 2001, the bookmakers said they’d keep their telephone betting onshore if the Government switched to a gross profit tax – a tax which enabled low margin games such as roulette to be viable on FOBTs. However, they reneged on this gentleman’s agreement, and their telephone and online operations are now located in Gibraltar. To recoup some of the lost revenue, the Government is pushing for a point of consumption tax, which has led to threats from the bookmakers and Philip Davies has turned his attention to arguing for a tax rate of 3% for the betting industry.

But can his behaviour be explained? Shortly after Philip Davies submitted his complaint to the ASA, it transpired that he’d enjoyed the hospitality of Ladbrokes without declaring it at a Select Committee inquiry into the Gambling Act. The particular select committee inquiry included questioning the CEO of Ladbrokes, Richard Glynn. Last year, 83% of Ladbrokes’ turnover and 52% of their profits came from FOBTs, and the Select Committee inquiry recommended lifting the cap of four FOBTs per betting shop. If the Government had accepted this recommendation, betting shops could fill their premises with what has been proven to be the most addictive form of gambling. Philip Davies also receives an annual subscription from Peninsula Business Services, a company owned by Peter Done, who is a shareholder in BetFred’s holding company and the brother of Fred Done, Mr Bet Fred himself.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards forced Philip Davies to apologise to the House. It’s exactly this sort of thing that turns people off politics. For as long as we tolerate MPs who would appear to rather be corporate puppets than represent the people, we will continue to get the sort of politics we deserve.