The story behind a tragic story

In his current monthly ‘Licensing Expert’ article for SBC News, entitled ‘The story behind a tragic story’, David Clifton concludes that it is inevitable that the coroner’s conclusions in the inquest into the tragic suicide of Jack Ritchie will feature in the forthcoming debates on gambling law reform following publication of the Government’s Gambling Act Review White Paper.

David’s article (that you can download below) goes into more background detail, including:

  • evidence given to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Social & Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry by both Jack’s parents and the charity they co-founded, ‘Gambling with Lives’,
  • that Select Committee’s resultant recommendations to the UK Government and
  • the UK Government’s response to those recommendations,

than is contained our 7 March 2022 ‘Coroner finds regulation, information and treatment of problem gambling in 2017 to have been woefully inadequate’ news item, accessible here.


David’s above-mentioned article was written (and published) prior to the Gambling Commission’s announcement today of imposition of a £1.17million fine on Sky Betting and Gaming for sending promotional emails to self-excluded and unsubscribed customers.


UPDATE: Somewhat sooner than David’s forecast conclusion mentioned in the first paragraph of this posting, Paul Blomfield (MP for Sheffield Central, where Jack Ritchie was a constituent) secured a House of Commons debate on the subject of ‘Jack Ritchie: Gambling Act Review’. We have reported separately on this in our subsequent 23 March 2022 website posting entitled “Gambling Minister comes closest yet to indicating what can be expected in the Gambling Act Review White Paper”.