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I think that a lot of the charities think that this is a discipline that mirrors a U.S. prom party of who's the most popular. The gambling harm prevention sector now has a little more certainty after the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities confirmed the recipients for the £25 million of funding from the new statutory levy system. Moving on from the gamble-aware era, UK gambling harm prevention is now under the arms of NHS England, UK Research and Innovation and OHID, alongside the 33 organisations it will provide funding for. So who is getting funding who isn't? And how will these changes affect the levels of service for gambling, research, education and treatment in the UK? Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimum, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner and today I'm joined by SBC editor at large, Ted Menmure and editor of iGaming expert, Joe Streeter. Ted, how's things? It's good to have you back on the show. Very well, Charlie. Glad to be here with my other dance partner, Joe Streeter, to talk about the levy. Fantastic. Yeah. What else would you uh rather be doing to close the week? Joe, how are you? Yeah, I'm all good, Charlie. Fresh off the Easter break. Yeah. Ready to dance. Ready to dance. Brilliant. Well, let's jump straight into it. And I think before we... properly get into the meat of this. I think we should have a bit of a history lesson because a lot has happened to get to this point. So let's go back to the start. How did we get to this point where OHID is now in charge of distributing the funding of research, education and treatment? Yeah, listen, nobody gives a history lesson like my colleague Ted Menmure. So I will let him take the lead on this one. But it was a governmental decision off the back of lots of lobbying. And what I will say is some of those that lobbied hard for this decision are not particularly happy with the outcome of where we are now, but I will pass over to Ted to provide the full context. Thank you, Shah, for giving it to the old man of the podcast. Okay, so. The change in the structure of the levy of gambling harms or as was previously referenced, UK Gambling's voluntary levy on research, education and treatment, the RET levy, really stems back to the Gambling Act review and its cycle from 2022 to 2024. So in that period of revision, the structure of the levy was viewed as basically the most polemical and sensitive regulatory affair of the gambling review itself. The levy had been under the management of GambleAware as chief commissioning charity since 2017, but the review opened questions to public health stakeholders and especially high ranking NHS clinicians who criticized GambleAware's close connections and close ties with gambling licenses and the need for a detachment or a completely new structure away from the gambling sector. GambleAware used It's 100 million per year levy that was built on voluntary funds to build a national gambling support network. And funding was primarily reserved for frontline services such as Gamcare. However, it did supply a good portion to secondary units focused on specialized treatment and research. So you're talking about your YGAMS, your Betno Molls, your Gordon Moody's, and also kind of your university projects into specialized research into gambling harms. However, in 2014, and under the pressure, DCMS chose to end Gambler Ware's role as chief commissioner of gambling harms. And instead it backed the NHS and statutory bodies or m partner bodies to create kind of a new centralized system to implement a statutory theory that would guarantee a hundred million pounds in funding per year from tax placed on gambling licenses. The new system of the NHS sees the NHS as guardian of frontline services. The IHID as guardian of third parties and charities and the UK Research and Innovation as the guardian or the provider of research grants. Now coming to this in 2016, simply put, we're seeing a new system being deployed and we're seeing the first feedback on grants and its efficiency. Yet for critics, which are many, is that the support and treatment of Ganning-Halms is now in a bureaucratic quagmire that it doesn't need to be in. Brilliant history lesson there, Tess. Sorry, sorry. We'll jump into some of the arguments for and against this in the back half of the show and get into the nitty gritty of those arguments. But how much funding is now available in this new regime under... under the statutory levy and, you know, ultimately has that figure changed from the old gamblerware framework. Charlie, I'll rephrase your question to how much money is now in the bureaucratic quagmire? Because, what a phrase. A lot is the answer. A lot is floating about more than before from from where I'm sitting. I think approximately 100 to 120 million, depending on uh the estimates that you look at are, you know, ring-fenced for, uh say, for gambling and gambling harms. Obviously, a big chunk of that will go to NHS treatment. And uh I think a part of this is where the aggrievance stems from is a lot of the charities that were in place, they could have been kept in place. They could have been kind of temporary measures to... to keep this going, to keep the system in place, to kind of ease the transition. know GambleAware is running in some form until the end of the year, is that correct? I think. I'm led to believe it's closed down at the end of March. Ted, me if we're wrong. Okay, think GambleAware will close fully closed services or its website from October, but it's not. Yeah, it's deceased since since the end of March. Yeah, yeah. So basically irrelevant. uh And yeah, so a big chunk, I think, before the the money was around around 50 million, something like that. So it has gone up significantly. But obviously, as Ted mentioned, that's a there's a lot of bureaucracy involved now. um A big chunk of it goes to kind of NHS treatment as well. um And yeah, more money, but yeah, how it's deciphered is uh what's kind of causing a grievance. And we know also a lot of charities that were involved before, because of that kind of bureaucratic process and because of the public health approach and the public health perspective on gambling, lot of companies that were involved before, not companies, lot of charities that were involved before have kind of changed what they do and opted not. to even be involved in this process. So yeah, quite interesting. Let's jump into this then because we're ultimately talking about this because the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities confirmed the recipients for the £25 million of funding that it is making available. There's 33 organisations on that list. We're not going to dive into every single organisation on there, but Ted, could you give us an overview of some of the headline people? recipients and perhaps some of the notable omissions that Joe was referring to as well. Okay, before we dive into this, look, it's important to understand that this is now a centralised system and the structure of funding given out grants has completely changed, right? So the NHS, as mentioned in the introduction, is the guardian of frontline services. It's taking 50 % of the pie. 30 % is going to the IHID and... is guardianship of charities and specialized treatment. And then the final 20 % is going to UK research for grants provided to charities and for educational purposes. Okay. Now what we've seen is who are kind of the big recipients of the first batch granted by the OHID, right? The big ones who come in are GAM care receiving 4 million. Why GAM? The education charity at 3 million, bet no more. getting another three million pounds. The council for voluntary services, Medway 1.5 million citizens advice, getting another 1.3 million. What we did yesterday is we kind of did a kind of cross comparison with the final year of Gamblerwares activity as, as chief, as chief commissioner. And where we kind of see the differences come into play is that against the old GambleAware framework, GambleAware was much more kind of specific on third parties and what they needed to provide in order to get grants and to secure funding, know, be it kind of either kind of bringing kind of community focused actions, targeted actions, or kind of lived experience. The OHID doesn't seem to carry those same kind of determinations, right? And so frustrations are showing in how uh in how long it has taken to kind of publish the first initial set of recipients. And we've got to remember this was a levy structure that was formalized since April 2025 and now the first list has been published. Another factor is just the lack of feedback that has been given to kind of third parties and charities on application. Look, the treatment of gambling harms is always fluid and can take on kind of many disciplines, right? And it's just not stuck to this is treatment. You know, could have taken into account kind of recovery, advice, outreach, family support, and kind of ad hoc services. And I think this is another point where many are critical that the centralized service is now being tested, but also kind of loses that kind of tacit functionality that it used to have. it's certainly been a long, complicated and perhaps controversial um sort of process of this sort of change from the Gamble Aware era. What has the reaction then been? We'll stick with the gambling sector. Has there been any sort of consensus amongst operators or people within the industry in terms of their reaction to this? Joe, have you picked up any sense of how people are receiving this? um The response to the first, the initial list was, know, I didn't see loads. think we're all kind of trying to, Ted's done a fantastic job there of deciphering from the charities that have been chosen, deciphering the new kind of stance that is going to be taken and the new strategy that is going to be taken to safer gambling. seems like it's shifting towards a more prevention first approach, kind of education programs in there, things like that. But obviously reading between the lines there, um yeah, trying to decipher that. In terms of the industry reaction, I think the industry reaction more has been to the process and to uh various kind of rigid frameworks um that have been put in place in order to kind of try and be part of this process for charities. um And that's just a really around a lack of kind of wanting to cut ties with the industry, just not um any type of collaboration with the industry, um which is tough. think it's not a good start. It's not a great look. We kind of need to see. But then, you know, we've seen it in response as well. I think it's worth noting that for the industry, um when it comes to regulations and things like that, um You know, we do see them from a perspective, but you've got to put the public health perspective on sometimes. Public Health England and, know, in the public health sector, they will see kind of any type of gambling advertising as too much. It's a very different perspective to the industry perspective. So this is an interesting time for sure. But I think the main reaction from the industry has been just around the lack. of any kind of willingness to work with the industry from the new chief commissioner? Look, at this point, and I think, okay, look, there's a lot of finger pointing going on at the moment. However, I think one organization that you're to be critical here is of TCMS and how it's kind of handled that kind of transfer of the structure and overseen it. And at the time, even when they took it away from Gambler Ware, There was, you know, this decision of like, what role would that charity play? it was even kind of frozen out of the transfer in itself. And I guess this is where we are, where I think that a lot of charities think that, you know, this is a discipline that mirrors kind of like a US prom party of who's the most popular. Why do they have to kind of reapply? Why do they have to like retell their story and their experience of working in something as complex as dealing with treatment, know, specialized treatment for gambling harms, which again, I said, that it's a very kind of convoluted practice. We didn't need to be at this stage, either just taking gambling away in some form or another to be part of that kind of transfer process and keep some of the core stakeholders happy. Yeah. The money was there to do that. think that's a big part of the grievances is It's not like they were too cash strapped to do that. The money was there to kind of keep some of these key parts in place for a transitional process. instead, we've got this really abrupt transition to a new system. Joe, Ted, we've got to take a quick break, but we'll come back afterwards and continue this debate. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Now, before the break, we spoke about DCMS being under quite a bit of scrutiny. It has been a controversial process for sure. Another government department that's going to come under a lot of scrutiny through this process is the Department for Health and Social Care with so much emphasis being placed on the NHS. We know the NHS, for those who aren't in the UK, the NHS is free at the point of use and it's sort of widely lauded, but it's an organisation that's been placed under a lot of stress and strain recently. What are the main complaints then? of funding of RET being centralised through the NHS and through the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities. Okay, so from what we've seen here this week, and this is the first set of grants, it's taken by the guardianship of the OHID. So this relates to third parties. On the wider aspect, it's kind of like, what is the actual overall oversight and coordination of the system in itself, right? Look. Whatever your criticisms of Gamblerware, they did structure an efficient network of national gambling, you know, the, the NG, the NGSN uh structure. And it was fluid from the period of 2017 to today. Now, um, there are so many fears of like what is being kind of lost in this transfer. Also what are kind of the, if we're even getting kind of in any kind of new efficiencies in coordination between. The NHS as it is kind of stewardship, kind of frontline services and its engagement with wider parties tackling kind of gambling harms. Uh, from what we're getting in the feedback is that there's, you know, little kind of no communication and that, uh, especially a lot of kind of third party charities have been kind of frozen out of the system and they don't know how to kind of reapply for, for funding or whether it's even worth them still being in existence or just kind of transferring or merging up. with other kind of third party charities and kind of creating new organizations to go and apply for funding. I remember kind of like during the Gannon Review itself that we were talking about kind of like the politics of gambling, of the gambling sector, how it's regulated. But once now come into light, it's much more the politics of the NHS and also the politics of the third sector and how... these guys, these organizations fight for grants, fight for their existence, they push and pull just as much as any UK gambling license. what we need to stress for people not based in the UK as well is the NHS is almost religion-like in the way that it's treated in this country. when it moves or when there's a consensus the NHS wants or needs something, there's a lot of public support behind that. I think that's sort of important to know. But we're talking about the politics of gambling, the regulation of gambling, the politics of the entire health system. I think it can be quite easy to lose perspective of what we're actually talking about here, which is... people who are suffering from gambling addiction and problem with their gambling. And ultimately those are the people who are using these services. What's ultimately going to change or is anything going to change for end users of those sort of treatment and education services? Are there any sort of impact assessments of whether these services will be impacted by some of these changes? uh Yeah, just to kind of, you know, before I answer that, just kind of tap into you know, the politics a little bit and to speak on that, was at a conference, the illegal gambling prevention summit, I think in Manchester, not that long back and it was filled with some of the great people of the third sector who do brilliant work, um all working towards that same cause that you mentioned, Charlie, you know, supporting people with problem gambling. um And the room was, you know, it was very interesting to see the room split. there were probably a little bit more kind of rallying against the new process than there were rallying for it. But to see a room of the third sector, know, third sector figures being split and polarised on a subject was very interesting. felt, yeah, I really kind of saw the politics of the third sector and the politics of gambling kind of come to light. Very interesting times. And I think you've seen that um as they've kind of scrapped for uh to be part of this kind of funding. Yeah, to be part of this funding process. You have seen that those politics really kind of flare up. It's quite something. And I think m it's hard to tell what the real result will be on the end user. oh I do worry about this transition period. uh There were reports of kind of funding gaps. I think by cutting out the industry entirely, by really trying to blacklist anybody that's worked with the industry, and we saw um Duncan Garvey kind of put on the process that Betblocker had been through to ensure that they could secure OHID funding. um And one of the things they had to do was ensure that any ties to the industry, any links that they had back to the industry. were truly cut, know, included kind of leaving roles and various things like that. I think by doing that, you uh risk losing nuance. And I think that's very important and kind of nuance and niche expertise. Gambling is unlike anything else. It's not the same as tobacco or, uh know, uh fatty foods or alcohol, things like that. It's less binary and it can't be viewed as... It shouldn't be viewed as binary as those issues. uh There's important nuances around it and you only understand that and you only treat that effectively by having specialists and by having nuances. And that comes from lived expertise as well, lived experience. And I think there's a risk that we limit that. And I think that's one of the most effective forms of treatment and to support in those that suffer with problem gambling. Um, yeah, that's a real concern. Uh, for sure. Uh, but yeah, we have to wait and see. I'm not going to predict the future, but I think, look, we have to kind of analyze the NHS and where it is at the moment and also its relationships with other, uh, governing parties, especially the OHID. Now what I'm, my kind of first feelings at the way kind of funding has been dished out is that I think. that the NHS is looking to kind of create one very, very defined centralized system, right? When we, it wants to work with bigger, uh bigger organizations or organizations that look, that are much more kind of functional. So I think that, you know, fine. If you're GAM care, if you're YGAM, if you want to, know, one of these kinds of proven charities, you, you're fine. Your, your funding is secured. You've got the heritage, you got the knowledge, but because you got you this kind of your built in systems there, the NHS will support you and see you through this, this transfer. think what the NHS is trying to get to and what the IHID is that a much, a much more smaller, but dedicated network. And I don't think that it's there to kind of listen to the smaller kind of charities that might be kind of providing kind of more kind of community led support or more. uh a more kind of refined treatments for gambling addiction. think that they're going to say, look, that can be handled by someone else if we give them more funding. And I think that it's not, we're going through this kind of transition of the system, but I think that the NHS and especially the OHID, they want to kind of change the overall kind of bindings and the mold. Well, we're coming towards the end now. We're slightly running out of time, but I think it would be, it might not be appropriate of us to talk about what might happen in the future so much because we can't really predict that. And ultimately we're talking about people who are suffering from gambling addictions. perhaps let's just end on reflecting on that GambleAware era. How do we look back at that era and the impact that GambleAware's treatment had? And might we look back on that as something that you know, didn't necessarily need to be changed so much. Joe, how about you kick us off on that one? I'll start, but I will let Ted once again finish with a strong history lesson on uh on Gamble Aware. But yeah, absolutely foundational. think um it's really provided uh shifted the dynamic, shifted the landscape, find it easy to access uh care. Yeah. Foundationable further foundational. m And it would be great to kind of see that built on and see that the positives that Gambleware put into place in their system. It would be great to see that built on as a bridge to this new system. I think that's where the fears come that it's kind of going to be disregarded and a new era is just going to abruptly kind of end everything that was before it. um But yeah, you can't I don't think um But yeah, a very strong foundation provided by Gamblerware, very pioneering service really. Ted, how would you reflect on that era? I agree with a lot of what Joe said. It is a pioneering charity. Its systems have been copied by other markets and other kind of regulatory bodies. However, you know, looking back at it, it's clear that Gamblerware is the biggest victim of the kind of most political decade of UK gambling. I don't know if there's another universe in which it would have survived. I think that once... The certain NHS senior figures saw Gambleware's position and saw the amount of funding that it had provided that they wanted that piece of pie. um It's now up in the air of how this transfer is managed, but whether we get better outcomes is what everyone should be focused. One thing that's for certain is that the system in two years is going to look very, different than what it is now. um I think for the smaller charities is that they have to kind of engage, you know, revise themselves and ask, you know, is it even worth them kind of applying for grants in the futures or do they need to merge with one another to survive? Yeah, we've, speak to what Ted said, we've seen a lot of charities that were pulled out from the process and just take a different approach. It's going to look very different. you know, as you mentioned that Gamblerware one of the biggest victims, a scary consequence of that that should really reverberate around NHS offices is all those that were supported by GambleAware em potentially losing out and that that should cause real fear. Well, I don't think this is the last of this story and I don't think this is the last that we will talk about it on the podcast and we'll try to get the experiences and insights from people right at the heart of this story. So Stay tuned whilst we try to get those views on the show. But for now, Ted, Joe, thank you ever so much for coming on and sharing your expertise on this one. Thank you to Optimove as always for sponsoring the show and to our audience for tuning into today's episode of iGaming Daily and come back next week to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news. you