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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
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I don't really understand what the objection to having a betting shop on the high street is. Nobody is forced to go in and have a bet on the 315 at Haydock when they're walking past. You know, these are good things. People, know, plenty of people enjoy having a punt and they employ people. Andy Burnham has taken his first policy announcement on gambling of his premiership as he plans to abolish the Aim to Permit rule from the Gambling Act 2005. The move would give local councils the authority to oppose plans for new high street gambling venues to open in their area. Burnham said that the rise of vape shops, betting shops and rogue operators have replaced the shops, services and community spaces that people are crying out for. Meanwhile, rates for adult gaming centres are also set to rise in another blow for the brick and mortar sector. So why are these changes coming in and what is the impact going to be? Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimoof, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today to dissect all of this with me is our editor-at-large, Ted Menmure, and our media director, Martin Elliott. Ted, how are you? Very well Charlie. And yeah, another day of kind of fast changing news coming into play. So yeah, it's good to dissect it with Martin. Yep, absolutely. Martin, we're going to talk about Burnham's Britain. How are you doing? Yeah, well, obviously living near Manchester. I've not heard enough about Andy Burnham over the past. seven years or how long it's been. let's let's have a chat about him. Apparently he's quite famous these days. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think it's fair to say that Andy Burnham has made a few enemies today in the in the gambling sector, associating them with vape shops, betting shops and dodgy businesses. A phrase which I'm sure is is going down very well. Ted. think it might be a good opportunity just to start by saying, you know, what is the aim to permit rule and what's your reaction to this morning's news? Okay. So in terms of the reaction, you know, just not surprising one bit at all. And as mentioned in previous podcasts, as mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham nailed his mast to scrapping the rule and giving more powers to councils on the licensing of gambling venues. He was the most high profile figure of the take back control campaign and was unlikely to sideline the issue on taking up his premiership. But I think that as this news is breaking and as it breaks, we have to kind of step back once more from the hysteria of the news lines and see what this kind of scrapping entails. Again, the hysteria is unnecessary and it doesn't help to kind of understand the nuances of the actual situation. and one that impacts many lives and many businesses and kind of the economic outburst of the UK and the high street. So yes, I think you want me to kind of break down what the aim to permit rule is, right? So yeah, let's begin here. And this is where kind of the nuances come into play. And the aim to permit rule is a mechanism of the gambling act of 2005. and it does not mean councils must automatically approve gambling premises. It means that rather they should permit applications where they comply with the gambling commission and its guidance and oversights on UK licences. Even the guidelines state that aims to permit should be viewed more as a consistency test of the gambling businesses and their application of licensing and the assessment of conditions for their rejections. The rule has always allowed council to refuse the applications or to impose conditions where specific risks should be considered. But crucially, they cannot reject the license simply because there is no local demand for another gambling venue or a moral objections. So as I kind of bringing kind of this part to conclusion, on reflection, the problem is that the debate has been so poorly considered and served by all sides. Yes, the rule asks councils to take a permissive rather than restrictive approach to licensing, but no party has presented a credible alternative framework to find a resolution. Martin, Ted's gone for a very measured, sensible approach where we shouldn't be going into the hysteria. What was your reaction? Are you sort of leaning into the hysteria or would you like to come at it with a... a more measured approach as well. mean, I would like to lean into the hysteria that is very much in my personality. So taken as a sort of a wider view, I think it's quite right that local councils should be able to make decisions about what goes on in the high street. It's all to do with the makeup of their local society and so on. But Ted has raised a really interesting point here in that. It's the reasoning behind these decisions which concerns me about removing this particular rule. So if you have people who are coming from a particular religious standpoint, which they're perfectly entitled to do, a particular moral standpoint, perhaps they've experienced some gambling harm in their family and become counsellors later on. All those things are perfectly valid points to raise in a debate about whether to give a new license to a new betting shop or a... permit a new adult gaming centre on the High Street. But they shouldn't outweigh evidence-based tests of what they want to do. So my fear here is that actually this change will be abused. It's probably the wrong reason, but it'll actually make it pretty much impossible because there are, as we're very well aware within political parties and in particular local government, some very strong anti-gambling interests in there. And I think we'll will not have proper debates about the retail sector anymore. think longer term, this is a bit more than just, will any more venues open in next couple of years? We'll also see there will be license renewals and things like that coming up. I think this might be, and not to go too far into it, this is a We're already struggling on the retail thing. The retail sector is struggling because of a number of reasons around taxes and not just gambling taxes, national insurance, cetera, business rates, rising rents, all this kind of thing going in there. This is another step and I think this will just perhaps entirely deter companies from trying to invest in retail anymore. And I think there's a slight myth that has been sort of created in this entire debate because if you look at the communications that the Prime Minister has put out, he refers to the rise of betting shops. Now, if we take a look at any sort of graph or data from this, it's just simply not true, is it? So maybe we should just look at the current makeup of gambling on the UK high street. Ted, how about you give us an idea of... what that make-up is and how that landscape might change if control is given to these local councils. Okay. So according to the Gammon Commission stats, there are circa 8,250 types of gaming establishments on UK high streets. And the majority of them, which is 5,800, are UK betting shops, arcades, AGCs are 1,400. 680 bingo halls and 170 family entertainment centres. That's the makeup, the current makeup of UK gambling on the high street. In terms of, I'm going go back to what Martin was saying. Look, yeah, the debate has been poor, but from a political kind of level and what hasn't been answered is that if you scrap aim to permit, and it's an easy political message, right? What do you have to replace it? and what are kind of the checks and balances on, you know, any type of kind of problematic venue on the high street. And it goes back to this idea of why that rule was implemented as a kind of consistency test on regulations at a local level. And it did serve very well. So it'd be interesting to see, like, it's not just a case of Burnham saying, OK, we're just going to back to local bounties. But what are now, I think, what the industry should be questioning here and what are going to be the checks and balances that they get, know, gambling establishments or gambling licenses have a fair process on the high street and a fair representation that hasn't been answered. think that one of the purposes of this measure is to sort of clean up the high street, to bring to sort of create a high street where there are a more wide range of businesses that fit in with people's community spirit and things like that. But if you have a significant closure of betting shops, that doesn't necessarily mean that butchers, that greengrocers are going to occupy those spots, does it? Because those businesses still have to deal with the exact same macroeconomic picture that... retail betting shops do as well, don't they Martin? Yeah, mean essentially there are two types of high street in the UK now. There's the nice middle class one with the butcher, the greengrocer, the art gallery, the bespoke jewelers and probably yoga studio. Betting shops aren't taking premises there and the reason is they're just too expensive to run in those places. It's not there's a shortage of people gambling, they're probably just doing it from their smartphone. and so on. Where this is going to hit is on the, trying to think of the politically correct way to say this, the more run down shopping areas, the more run down retail areas, which already have huge vacancy rates, which are largely made up of fast food shops, chain coffee shops, you might assume one or two of those are owned. Vape shops of course, as was thrown in there. And I think this is one of the frustrating things about what Andy Burnham has been saying. And you know, he's taken the script from Dawn Butler and from the Social Market Foundation and so on. I don't think these premises are so bad. In particular betting shops. I don't really understand what the objection to having a betting shop on the high street is. Nobody is forced to go in and have a bet on the 315 at Haydock when they're walking past. These are good things. Plenty of people enjoy having a punt. And they employ people. I see no problem with that. I don't have a particularly strong view on adult gaming centers. I've never been in one because they don't really hold any appeal for me as a consumer. I walk past and think, yeah, that's not for me. The one thing I do question on that though is why are they open 24 hours a day? That bit has always puzzled me. Who is going at five o'clock in the morning and saying, you know what, I need a bit of mega ways action now. that bit is a bit puzzling, but I think in general to just a lumping, lumping betting shops with, I mean, a tenor of what he's saying about the dodgy businesses. said, essentially he's looking at things that might be used for nefarious purposes and money laundering and that kind of thing is what he's getting out there. But that doesn't fit in his 30 second TikTok explaining the policy, it? So no, we are in a, if you can't explain your policy in a 30 second TikTok, then you may as well not have a policy. Well, that's been the lesson of the past. past few weeks but that's the joy of taking charge when Parliament's on recess and you can use social media to explain everything rather than having to take questions from Kimmy Badenock across the dispatch books. absolutely. Well, I must say that when I see the Facebook groups or speak to people where I come from, they aren't complaining about betting shops, it's more vape shops and... take away shops and barber shops rather than betting shops. But Ted, let's talk about the reactions now. First of all, we'll go to you for the BGC's reaction. What concerns do the trade body have about removing aims to permit? So yes, as a trade body, the BGC has stated its disappointment and its put forward concerns and job losses and the economic impact with the decision. It led with the message that betting shop numbers have fallen by over a third since 2019. Around 3000 shops have closed and this has impacted about 15,000 jobs that have already been lost. However, in my view, I think that there is a disconnect, but it mentions betting shops are valued as a community hub. And I think, and it's clear that the councils and just ministers aren't buying this. Again, I kind of return this back to the BGC. I don't think it ever expressed or that councils had ultimate controls on licensing via the aim to permit rule. And I think this has been part of the frustrations for mine. It's that they haven't really looked at the of the technicalities. And again, it should have kind of portrayed the rule as this mechanism for consistency. There has been a kind of a failure of engagement by the industry to... put forward another part of the debate to politicians. Yeah, this simply isn't just a rule that says, yeah, gambling shops can open everywhere. Maybe we should have explained that a little bit better. Martin, on the other side of the debate, the gambling industry's favourite think tank, the Social Market Foundation, has backed this proposal and I believe was one of the main driving forces of proposing the scrapping aim to permit. Why does it support the change and how does it believe that these tighter controls could help revive the high street? Well, I'm not sure it does believe they can help to revive the high street really. One of the interesting things is that the particular Social Market Foundation report that a lot of this is based on didn't talk about betting shops or talked a lot about adult gaming centers. and how it thinks that those are, I mean, without coming out and saying it directly, it clearly thinks they are a problem in terms of gambling harm and in particular, introducing normalizing gambling for young people. part of this is it wanted greater licensing powers for local authorities to clamp down on these. And it wanted to have a look at how the responsibilities were balanced between the gambling commission and local authorities on which premises should be permitted. its number one conclusion was abolishing him to permit. Now, I should say, I quite like the social, a lot of the work this particular think tank does, it has some really interesting stuff when it's not talking about gambling. It's gambling stuff that always comes across as very one sided. Or perhaps that is me working in the industry and I just see the other side of things all the time. But in particular, it raised the issue of young people being affected disproportionately by anal gaming centers. I've always been a little bit confused by that, but timing being everything. There's a bit of research published today by an organization called... Born in Bradford, Age of Wonder, which is a study into adolescents in the city of Bradford. And this is a significant survey, because it surveyed more than 7,000 people aged between 12 and 15. And it found that 29 % of respondents to their survey had spent some money on gambling activities at some point in their life, which is quite high. Particularly if you think about the community makeup around Bradford, there's a lot of people whose families will definitely not be gambling for religious reasons. Now, I did think about this. We're going to be down to loot boxes and all this kind of things again. But the most telling thing was, well, two really telling things. One is essentially none of the very, very few statistically insignificant number said they spent money on gambling websites or apps because they weren't able to access them I guess. But the most common form of gambling amongst these kids is fruit machines and slot machines. So they are getting in and playing somewhere and you know there are pubs, are social clubs, sports clubs and so on which have some of these machines about as well but I was really quite taken aback by that. I mean I was young once when I did do realize you want to do things you're not allowed to do when you're young. That's part of growing up and you know, that will be part of the attraction. That is a significant number, significant proportion of the population playing on these machines. So perhaps some of the stuff the Social Market Foundation has been saying might be correct, might have a bit more value than I've previously given it credit for. Interesting. That's certainly an interesting piece of research. Ted, Martin, we need to take a very quick break and we'll come back and we'll talk about the impact that this might have. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Ted, I'll bring it back to you now. Just reflecting on this morning's news, how significant do you think that this could be for bookmakers who are already closing shops, they're consolidating their retail portfolios already and reassessing the future of their betting shops? This is just going to put another dent in those plans, don't you think? To an extent, yes, but I think that retrenchment has already been happening and it's not because of this decision. It really is down to the adjustment of the remote gambling guillotine creation to 40%. And as they were won by leadership and the first cuts were always likely to come to the retail estate, we've seen that and it's been enacted by the PLC's of Flutter, Evoke. And this, know, just two weeks ago, we bet Fred announced on the closure of 650 betting shops, 10 % of the states. It's a period of adjustment for you, for British bookmakers on the high street. And it's not just down to our tax alone too. It's down to just the economic realities that they're facing. My belief here, and I think kind of on reflection of the transition of UK gambling is that. part of the problem here is that we never debated UK gambling on the high street as part of the gambling review. It was very much sidetracked. It very much left the sidelines and it became kind of this analog element of gambling when it was very much alive. UK gambling on the high street is evolving, but it's evolving through a beat of just economic realities, not political intervention. we've sort of wondered. whether this government might want to reopen the gambling act review. Martin, do you think that if the High Street was included in the original review, then we might be in an ultimately stronger position now? Do you think there is a risk that there's a reopening somewhere of this? I don't think we'll see a reopening of that review solely on for practical reasons. I think there is. There will be some desire from the back benches of the Labour Party at the moment, but just think in practical terms there are way, way bigger issues around social care, defence spending, the NHS, all these kind of things that will require great parliamentary bandwidth and government bandwidth. Trifling around the edges. It's not going to win many votes and a new Prime Minister who comes in halfway through is already thinking about how do I win the next election, when do I call the next election. There's not many votes in gambling reform, I don't think, so I think we're safe. just getting back to the first part of that question. Yeah, I think as an industry and the people who represented us around the gambling act and the various bits of research and consultations and so on, we did drop the ball a little bit on the high street, which is still a significant part of the industry. mean, everyone thinks it's dying and... it's definitely declining, but it's a long way from being dead at the moment. It's got a number of years, well, perhaps a number of decades left in it still to go. And it employs a lot of people. So we should have focused more on that. were sidetracked by endless arguments about advertising regulations, what we can do with bonuses and all those kind of practical things, whereas perhaps we should have been thinking a little bit more about jobs. cultural effect of the industry. During that debate, we let people make a moral case against gambling by using the extremes of the online gambling industry, and in particular, stuff that's outside the review, so illegal gambling operators online and the extremes that they have. And during those discussion processes, somewhere in in the minds of politicians and I imagine a significant part of the public. It all merged into one thing and now we're pretty much on the back foot and people can say things about your high street betting shop which don't we aren't really true about the high street betting shop but people think they're true about the whole industry and that's a problem reputationally that is a real problem. Yeah I mean those 600 job losses at Betfred in the last couple of weeks are going to be significant and when we've got over a million people in this country, not in work, education or in training. That's only going to add to that problem. Ted, let's bring things towards a close now. As these new measures come in, as we expect them to do so later in the year, how do you expect leadership teams at major operators to react? Do you think that this is going to be another round of shop closures or do you think it will just be... a slow down of new shops opening. How do you see this one playing out? I think for UK leadership, it's a cold, hard game here. It's nothing to do with politics. It's just everything to do with looking at how to balance books and the cold, hard bottom line. again, as I mentioned, it's the first cuts were always going to go towards UK estates, especially with anyone who had exposure to the high streets. Um, that won't change by any kind of political intervention. Going back to this, uh, I think that the most intriguing, uh, element of this is how maybe the map of UK gambling changes. And in terms of how, you know, these, these councils will take that control and whether they enforce them and how They actually find out how difficult it is to just change that because it's not just a case of like this wall has been repealed. It's what takes over that high street, what takes over that, you know, that shop entry. And I think that we might see kind of a very big kind of dispensing of that map in the UK between kind of as Martin was saying, rich councils versus, you know, the poor, poor constituencies. And again, I think that this might become a headache that also, you know, hits UK gambling and it all, for sake of down the line in a couple of years that, you know, especially for a government that's trying to kind of rebalance the economy. Yeah, absolutely fascinating times ahead, I think. And yeah, we'll see how this one plays out over the coming months and years. And we'll continue to report on that on SBC News and iGaming Daily. Martin, thanks for joining me. Ted, thanks for joining me as well. Thanks to Optimove for supporting the show as always and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning into today's episode of iGaming Daily and come back tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news. you