Ahead of this week’s Westminster debate around gambling advertising, Grainne Hurst, Chief Executive Officer of the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), has urged MPs to tread with caution.
The debate, due to take place this Thursday, has been organised by the Backbench Business Committee, and was put forward by Alex Ballinger and Dr Beccy Cooper, respective MPs for Halesowen and Worthing West.
More importantly, Ballinger and Cooper are both gambling reform proponents. They have been particularly vocal about gambling advertising, and have systematically participated in discussions defending more stringent approaches towards marketing.
Last December, Cooper said this during a debate on gambling reforms: “We need regulatory and legislative tools to tackle industry marketing practices, and we must make sure that children are protected from the proliferation of gambling ads, sponsorship and influencer marketing.
“We have heard about the last Government’s White Paper, which does not give us the right road map to address this public health crisis…and it fails to address advertising, sponsorship and the modern marketing of gambling.
“We must look to review the White Paper and set a timeline for a new gambling Act.”
Shortly after, Ballinger took part in a January debate on gambling harm and the protection of young people, highlighting that social media by far hides the biggest risk of exposing minors to advertising while also urging the government to exercise more control over marketing.
“There is a real problem in the self-regulation of content marketing,” he said. “The Advertising Standards Authority has a Committee of Advertising Practice code of practice that requires gambling marketing communications to be clearly identifiable as such, but again and again, we are not seeing that followed.
“The evidence is clear. The public is tired of gambling adverts—that much is obvious. I urge the Government to heed the report of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling reform, which will include proposals on limiting the most harmful forms of advertising, particularly as it affects young people.”
But, as with any political discourse, the rope is being pulled from each side. In an op-ed for PoliticsHome, Hurst called for a balanced approach that recognises the responsibility that the licensed sector carries with it, and the biggest threat it faces in the UK – the black market.
To properly get her point across, the BGC CEO cited a study by global marketing intelligence firm WARC, which put out some very concerning conclusions about the prominence of illegal operators.
Marketing expenditure by legal operators is expected to drop by 9.2% in 2026 to £1.1bn. Meanwhile, the firm predicts that the advertising spend from unregulated providers will grow by 32% over the next two years – passing the £1bn mark by 2028.
Given that many licensed operators in the UK are currently cutting down on gambling spend due to the Remote Gaming Duty tax going up from 21% to 40%, it could be then deduced that the licensed advertising share will keep dropping, while its illegal counterpart will keep gaining traction.
That’s also WARC’s conclusion, which states that regulated operators are expected to account for less than 50% of spend by October 2028.
“The direction of travel is clear: regulated firms are scaling back their advertising, while the harmful black market grows rapidly. That should give policymakers pause,” Hurst added.
With such a trajectory on the cards, the UK government has the delicate task of constantly balancing between player protection and overregulation, with the first step of the rest of that journey happening during the upcoming advertising debate on Thursday.