Speaking at an SMF Panel on machine games duty and social harms, Alex Ballinger, Labour MP for Halesowen, made a direct call for a new Gambling Act.
Ballinger, who serves as co-chair of the APPG for Gambling Reform, said: “We would like to look in the medium term for a new Gambling Act to recognise the complete change that we’ve seen in the types of gambling, the new forms of online gambling and the like.”
The MP appeared at the 30 June presentation to lend his support to the SMF’s new policy paper calling for a doubling of machine gaming duty to 40%.
The thinktank has shifted its focus onto electronic gaming machines and fixed-odds betting terminals after its earlier success lobbying government around the autumn budget on remote gaming duty.
While the Treasury raised remote gaming duty and general betting duty, machine gaming duty escaped those reforms entirely, a decision the SMF argues contradicts the government’s own stated logic.
The SMF’s new report states: “The Government agrees taxes should be set relative to harm – but this logic is not applied to machine gaming.”
Ballinger, who wrote the foreword to the report, called the proposal “compelling” and suggested pursuing such reform would be “easy to do” from a political standpoint.
The political landscape around gambling reform has shifted further following the resignation of Keir Starmer, with a new occupant expected to take up residence at Number 10.
MP for Makerfield Andy Burnham has been rumoured as a candidate for the top job, and Ballinger indicated that Burnham “gets this stuff” when it comes to the public health dimensions of gambling.
Ballinger pointed to Manchester, Burnham’s former manor, having one third of the adult gaming centres of Birmingham, with just six compared to eighteen, as evidence of Burnham’s “strong track record of caring about the issues we’re talking about.”
The SMF’s proposals specifically target category B machines, the type commonly found in adult gaming centres and retail betting shops that are heavily concentrated in the most deprived areas of the country.
Ballinger called the SMF’s recommendations a “no brainer” and described the broader reform agenda as “an easy win” given the rare political and public appetite for gambling tax increases.
He told the audience that, in his experience, “the public are really annoyed and pissed off with the amount of gambling advertising they’re seeing, particularly around the World Cup, with the cross selling that happens whenever they go horse racing, or they get go to the bingo, pushing them to more harmful forms of gambling.”
Despite acknowledging the achievements of the 2023 white paper implemented under a Conservative government, Ballinger argued the 2005 Gambling Act was still “just scratching the surface in terms of the amount of harm.”
The 2023 white paper produced 60 recommendations that are still being debated, contested, and implemented across the industry, making the prospect of fresh foundational legislation a significant undertaking.
Ballinger insisted parliamentary Labour party support would exist for a new Gambling Act, adding: “I’m hoping the new Prime Minister is one of them, but that’s yet to be tested. We’ll have to speak to him, and I think the work could happen in less time than four years.”
Looking further ahead, he tempered expectations slightly, stating: “It may not be realistic for us to be talking about doing that this parliament, but we can get it ready to be in a manifesto for a future Labor government, potentially.”
