Thoughts on Gambling with Lives’ criticism of Safer Gambling Week

David Clifton is quoted in a Vixio Gambling Compliance article entitled UK Affiliates Not Linking To Safer Gambling Week(published on 2 November 2021), following criticism of Safer Gambling Week by charity Gambling With Lives CEO Will Prochaska in a PoliticsHome article entitled “This year’s political cringe event is here – the gambling industry’s Safer Gambling Week”.

In that article, Prochaska had said: “Research shows that there is no credible evidence that safer gambling messages reduce gambling”, adding that:

This week-long gambling industry lecture — with the support of industry funded charity partners — will ramp up to full condescension by reminding their customers they might want to think about gambling more responsibly, whatever that means, and will offer some ‘tools’ to help them, such as setting voluntary deposit limits.

I work for a charity, Gambling with Lives, that supports families whose lives have been shattered by gambling-related suicide. Research shows that every working day two people take their lives due to gambling in the UK. And anyone familiar with addiction knows that if it was just a matter of deciding to ‘set their limits’ or ‘take time to think’, no one would suffer from gambling disorder or take their life because of it.

David’s following opinion, that provided the basis for his comments regarding Prochaska’s article quoted within the Vixio Gambling Compliance article, picks up on recently published Gambling Commission gambling participation data:

‘Gambling with Lives’ undertakes excellent work, supporting families who have been sadly bereaved by gambling related suicides and, in the process, raising awareness of, and seeking to reduce, gambling-related harms. Given its aims, Gambling with Lives is hardly likely to be a natural supporter of the gambling industry. That emotions may be running high between both sides in the gambling reform debate as the Gambling Act Review approaches its White Paper stage is also no surprise.

However, it’s a shame that the charity’s recent damning criticism of this year’s Safer Gambling Week was not tempered, even to a small extent, by an acknowledgment that there is a distinct positive to be derived from the fact that the industry comes together this week to promote its ‘safer gambling’ messages in support of its own efforts to raise awareness of, and to reduce, gambling-related harms. There is a common aim here that both sides should recognise rather than risk raising more barricades to what one can only hope will be a responsible evidence-based debate over the coming months.

It would be an equal shame if any within the industry seek to prematurely celebrate the fact that recent Gambling Commission statistics indicate a reduction in problem gambling rates. They should focus instead on building upon this week’s safer gambling messages throughout the next 12 months in the hope that this same statistical trend will be reflected one year from now as the industry launches Safer Gambling Week 2022.