Gambling in Ireland: A billion euro self-regulated industry

Fianna Fáil want to crack down on the self-regulated gambling industry in Ireland if they are to form part of the next government with the party looking to prioritise the appointment of a long-awaited regulator as well as curbs on other areas.

As government formation talks continue between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, the issue of gambling legislation may not be at the very top of the list of priorities at the moment given the current situation but it is an issue that Ireland continues to lag way behind on.

Before the general election in February, Fianna Fáil spokesperson for justice and equality, Jim O'Callaghan, said the party had drafted a gambling control bill which would, among other things, see the creation of a gambling regulator that could ban live in-play betting, ban betting with a credit card and curb gambling advertising. The regulator would also be self-funded by a levy on the gambling industry.

“We want to give the regulator strong statutory powers including the power to prosecute, the power to withdraw licenses and impose fines,” O’Callaghan told The Irish Times this week.

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"Look at every other walk of life, the medical profession is regulated, the legal profession is regulated, you've got the Press Council for journalism, licensed premises – they're all regulated. And here we don't have sufficient regulation to deal with something that can be enjoyed by people, we're not trying to interfere with that, but when it has a detrimental impact it needs to have protections in place.

“It has to be a political priority for the next government.”

Sixpence and 10 shillings

Gambling has long been a woefully under-regulated industry in Ireland. Last December the Gaming and Lotteries (Amendment) Bill passed through the Oireachtas as an update to the previous bill which had legislated for gaming and lotteries – a bill which remained unchanged since 1956.

In the last 10 years or so the boom in online gambling has opened up betting to virtually every person in the country via the smartphone in your pocket. The Amendment Bill passed in December made only minor changes to the original legislation by formally setting the age limit to gamble at 18 while also updating the maximum stake for gaming machines to €10 and the maximum payout to €750. Incidentally, those limits had, until last December, been set at sixpence and 10 shillings respectively.

The current Betting Act dates from 1931 and was only slightly updated in 2015. In 2013 the then Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, drafted the Gambling Control Bill which aimed to bring all forms of betting, gaming and lottery in Ireland under one legislative roof. However, it has been a black mark against Fine Gael's last seven years in government that the Bill has only reached stage three of the five Dáil stages it needs to pass through with five more stages in the Seanad to follow before it could eventually be signed into law.

For an industry that is estimated to produce a gross revenue of over €1 billion a year in Ireland it is astonishing that it remains regulated only by those within the industry. In the UK the Gambling Commission has been in existence since 2007 and has the power to, among other things, grant licences, investigate illegal gambling and prosecute companies if they are not doing enough to curb problem gambling.

An example of one such case came in 2018 when the Commission fined 32Red £2 million (€2.2 million) for failing to protect a problem gambler who had deposited £758,000 (€850,000) with the company over two years. The customer in question had a net income of £25,800 (€28,900) per year.

Customer implementation

In Ireland there is no regulator to investigate and enforce such measures and one former employee of a large gambling company told The Irish Times that the message of responsible gambling put out by bookmakers is largely left down to customers themselves to implement through deposit limits, time-out periods, account closures and the like.

Meanwhile, emails and advertisements reminding customers to bet responsibly are accompanied by other messages with promotions and free bets. “It’s like saying to an alcoholic: keep drinking but you know it’s bad for you,” the former employee said.

When contacted by The Irish Times, both Paddy Power and Boylesports said they have been calling for the appointment of a regulator in Ireland for a long time and would welcome the move. "The right regulatory framework is a critical part of ensuring gambling is safe and in Ireland we've consistently called for an independent gambling regulator," read a statement from Paddy Power. "This would create structure in which important conversations about safer gambling, such as the one about credit cards and in-play betting, can be had effectively in order to drive a race to the top in responsible gambling across the sector."

Last week, the charity Problem Gambling Ireland – which provides assistance for those affected by gambling issues – wrote to Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party asking for gambling regulation to be included in the new programme for government which is expected to be finalised next week.

However, the gambling sector is a big industry in Ireland and, by extension, has a lot of lobbying power. The seven-year delay on the Gambling Control Bill is evidence enough of how much political will is needed to implement any sort of legislation around the industry and, while most big gambling companies will say they would welcome a regulator, there are other areas of the sector which wouldn’t.

Even the small amendments which were added to the Gaming and Lotteries Bill last year – one of which was essentially outlawing the practice of children under the age of 18 betting at the Tote at racecourses and greyhound tracks around the country – took a huge effort to get through the Oireachtas and O’Callaghan says he would expect as much if his party are given the chance to implement their Bill in the next government.

“When the Gaming and Lotteries Bill was being introduced there was huge level of lobbying going on,” he said.

“Obviously people are entitled to lobby and politicians are able to listen to a point of view without agreeing with that point of view, but I think it needs to be recognised that there’s a large industry out there and a significant part of it doesn’t want regulation. Now there are other parts of it, a large bookmaker will say they want regulation and I accept what they state but it’s really not for the industry to dictate whether or not there should be regulation and it’s not for them to dictate the type of legislation.

“They can certainly make their submissions on it but it should be a political priority for the next government to enact legislation that will regulate properly gambling in the country.”

Credit card gambling

What form that legislation will take is a different matter entirely and one that the gambling industry will be keen to have their say in as much as possible. In February, Fianna Fáil spoke about a ban on credit card gambling – a measure which came into force in the UK last year with much grumbling from some bookmakers – and a ban on live in-play betting which O'Callaghan at the time said "only fuels corruption in sport and encourages uncontrolled and dangerous gambling habits".

A ban on live in-play betting would certainly be a radical move and would be met with serious opposition from bookmakers. Live betting, particularly on football, has become one of the main profit drivers for online gambling companies. Last year Bet365 pulled in 79 per cent of its betting revenue from live markets – a total intake of £2.35 billion (€2.63 billion) from in-play betting alone.

Not many countries have such a ban in place with Australia being one of the few where it is not possible to place a bet online during a live event. In recent years there have been calls to reverse the ban in the country to stop people from using unregulated offshore websites instead.

Gambling companies would inevitably point to job losses, drops in revenue and more customers using such websites if a similar ban was to be implemented here and when asked about it O’Callaghan said it would not be down to politicians to decide on specific regulations.

“Politicians won’t have all the knowledge about the different types of gambling, that’s why we need expertise to regulate this industry. Rather than the Oireachtas trying to specify and regulate in great detail what is permitted and what isn’t permitted, we need to delegate that responsibility to a statutory office holder that will be established by the Oireachtas. The Oireachtas can set out the particular types of gambling that it wishes to see regulated but the specifics will have to come from the regulator itself,” he said.

It’s now seven years since Fine Gael attempted to begin the process of regulating gambling in Ireland and yet only very slight amendments have come into force.

Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have said it will be a priority for the next government but the fact is that, with each passing day, a billion euro industry in Ireland continues to slip under the radar and regulate itself.