Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Gambling Regulation Bill: Discussion

Mr. Martin Le Jeune:

I am indeed on mute and I apologise. I thank the Deputy very much for the question. The reason I say that is that we in the UK have been measuring rates of problem gambling over many years, including the period in which online gambling's share of the market went from effectively zero to a substantial proportion. Despite this, problem gambling rates as measured by the Gambling Commission, which is an official UK body and not an industry body, have either remained static or, in fact, dropped. More dramatically - and even I was surprised by this - during the period up to September 2021, which covers the period of lockdown, problem gambling rates went from 0.6% of those who gambled at least once a year to 0.3%. That is a remarkable figure. The only deduction one can make from that is that there is no inherent difference between online gambling and retail gambling as far as problem gambling is concerned.

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