The UK Gambling Commission took some shots at yesterday’s House of Commons debate on gambling adverts, with the gun fired by Alex Balinger, Labour MP for Halesowen.

Speaking on record, Ballinger accused the Commission of not doing enough to control gambling advertising in the country. 

It is worth mentioning that he’s also part of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gambling Reform (APPG), and throughout his political career has been a vocal proponent of severely restricting gambling marketing on the premise that to this day, many children are being subjected to it.

First in the line of fire came the 2005 Gambling Act White Paper Review, which was finalised and published in 2023 with 64 recommendations that are still being implemented. A Conservative MP brought the Paper into view, highlighting that it did not find a casual link between gambling advertising and an increase in problem gambling.

Ballinger, however, was adamant that this is simply not true, quoting his own personal investigations and the results of the APPG’s most recent report as the basis of his claim that “there is a clear link between gambling advertising and halting the recovery of people with gambling addictions”.

He also brushed off the whistle-to-whistle ban, another critical measure that the Commission mandated to limit the exposure of minors to gambling adverts during live sports events.

“Thousands of gambling messages still appear during matches through pitch-side advertising, sponsorship and branding” Ballinger said, pointing at other jurisdictions like Italy and the Netherlands that in his view the UK should be taking example from in terms of advertising policies.

Presenting more findings from the report he co-led about the prominence of advertising, the effect of children it is having, and recommendations it makes for more marketing restrictions, Ballinger was interrupted by Esther McVey, Conservative MP for Tatton.

McVey, a long-time political ally of the industry, questioned how much of these findings are accurate given that the Commission has apparently written to him three times about the potential misuse of these figures.

Ballinger denied this taking place, adding that the figures are direct quotes from the Commission’s own surveys, and that the challenge of the figures has actually come from “members of the gambling industry” instead.

As expected from every political conversation on gambling, the hour-and-a-half debate proved to be lively, with multiple MPs taking turns to swing the pingpong ball into each other’s fields. 

All possible topics were covered – starting from jobs and job losses to sports sponsorships and the black market. The full conversation can be accessed through Hansard.

There might be no need to go through the full text to draw a reader’s conclusion, however, if one scrolls down to Ballinger’s closing remarks.

He said: “We should not pretend that the unregulated market is the only one causing problems. There are issues in the regulated market as well. We have heard about the bonuses, the promotions, the free bets and other issues from people with lived experience, who have faced them in the regulated market too, which is the majority of gambling harm.”

While Ballinger may have a point in that the regulated market is a source of gambling harm too, in this writer’s opinion it’s important to note one thing – the regulated market actually has the legal requirement and willpower to do something about it. 

Referencing the black market while also stating that the regulated market represents the majority of gambling harm could be a bit of an oxymoron.

The argument downplays the extensive efforts the licensed industry has undertaken to step up player protection in recent years, and ignores the fact that the concept of player protection is completely absent from the black market.

The use of doublespeak, intentionally or not, and the effects of it have already been explored in detail by George Orwell in his novel 1984.