© SHAUN CURRY/AFP Men gamble on slot machines – SHAUN CURRY/AFP
Fears are growing that under-25s could be barred from smoking and drinking as “Tory nanny-statism” towards gambling reforms risks creating a new legal age definition.
Ministers will this week announce the biggest shake-up of betting laws since the industry was liberalised by Labour nearly two decades ago.
A crackdown on online slot machine games could limit under-25s to a maximum bet of £2, subject to a consultation, while adults aged 25 and over will be able to wager between £2 and £15 on a sliding scale.
The decision is understood to have sparked fierce debate between Downing Street and the Culture Department in recent weeks.
Officials are believed to have voiced concerns that introducing a legal age limit other than 18 could set a dangerous precedent across other industries, and would violate the principle that over-18s should make their own decisions.
No10 is thought to have suggested an alternative system whereby betters were assessed according to their risk of problem gambling, rather than their age.
Industry sources this weekend suggested that the under-25s age limit in relation to betting was the latest example of “Tory nanny-statism”.
The move risks riling backbench Conservative MPs who have witnessed a growing list of interventions by successive Tory ministers that have introduced a sugar tax, restricted promotions of products that are high in fat, sugar or salt, and a ban on the sale of nitrous oxide amid claims of a laughing gas epidemic.
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A Government review into smoking last year recommended increasing the age at which someone can buy cigarettes by a year every year until they are outlawed.
The proposals have already led to anger on the Tory right, including from free market campaigners.
Chris Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs said: “The infantilisation of young adults needs to stop.
“If people are old enough to vote, they are old enough to spend their money as they wish. With this policy proposal coming at a time when anti-smoking campaigners are calling for the smoking age to be raised again, we are in danger of creating a two-tier society in which young adults have fewer rights than older people. No doubt it will be alcohol next.”
The long-awaited crackdown on the gambling sector follows concerns about an explosion of problem gambling since a major relaxation of the industry under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Bookmakers will be hit with a mandatory 1pc levy that bosses estimate will raise £1 billion over the next five years.
The funds will be channelled into helping gambling addicts. But bosses fear the money risks being squandered by the “Whitehall blob”.
Barry Gibson, chairman of Entain, the £8 billion gambling group that owns Ladbrokes and Coral, fears a statutory industry levy will be “swallowed up into a kind of unaccountable spending” in Whitehall.
He said: “This is going to be £1 billion pounds over the first five year period – so it’s not kind of pocket or loose change.
“It [has to] go to a body. Some organisation that’s got accountability and responsibility and has to have a kind of public approach to this problem isn’t trying to sort out. This is how we’re going to identify the best way of doing that. And this is what we’re going to do and this is what we’re going to publish as a kind of outcome of all of this
“It would be wrong for it just to be lost in the general fat of government. There’s a big blob, isn’t there?”
A Government-mandated ban on football shirt sponsorship is set to be avoided in the reforms – despite widespread calls for it to be axed.
Premier League football clubs have instead pledged to phase out betting advertising by 2027.
Mr Gibson said there was no reason why all of the Premier League needed to wait four years, however. Ladbrokes, Coral and Entain’s other brands halted football advertising several years ago.
“We don’t do any of that,” he said. “It is peanuts in the scale of their [Premier League clubs] businesses – they don’t need that.
“So for them to have brought in a voluntary ban by 2027. It’s better than no progress, because it’s precious little progress.”
Online VIP schemes, which provide bespoke gambling products to customers willing to place large wagers, will be outlawed.
The offering of free bets by bookmakers as an inducement is expected to escape a ban, but is likely to face new restrictions on targeting of free bet offers to problem gamblers.
© Provided by The Telegraph Issues facing problem gamblers
A consultation on affordability checks – expected to be called “enhanced spending checks” – will be launched, meaning betting firms will avoid being forced to ask customers to provide pay slips before placing a wager.
Paul Scully, culture minister, said in January: “It is not the role of government or the gambling commission to tell people how much of their salary they are ‘allowed to’ spend on gambling.
“We would be providing better protections to consumers by moving to a black and white world where only financial indicators are considered.
“It is essential that operators use all the information they have on customers and their wider risk profile to inform the right interventions.”
Nevertheless, Mr Gibson told the Telegraph that he was supportive of affordability checks
“if we can find a workable way of doing” them.
He continued: “One company may identify a problem, individual, but you can’t share that data with other companies. And stop them just moving from your company to that company. There’s got to be a sensible period of working out how to do it… how to get around data protection laws.”
However, he cautioned that making it too difficult to put a bet on risked driving problem gamblers underground.
“The danger is you just drive people into the black market. And if anybody thinks there’s no black market, then they clearly are not kind of following the stats and looking at the research. There’s clearly a thriving black market in gambling,” he said.