News
Statement re programme to be shown on BBC’s Panorama on Sunday night, ‘Online Gambling - Britain’s Newest Obsession’
24 November 2006
GamCare notes today’s press reports regarding the programme to be shown on BBC’s Panorama on Sunday night entitled ‘Online Gambling - Britain’s Newest Obsession’.
GamCare has encouraged and will continue actively to encourage all operators of online gaming sites to embrace and implement the standards of social responsibility contained within the Gambling Act 2005. GamCare continues to work with all of the major online operators who have adopted the principles of social responsibility and are working hard to ensure that their customers’ online experience is both enjoyable and safe. Those operators have implemented a number of ‘checks and balances’ to ensure that customers can control their online gaming experience.
GamCare strongly encourages all of those who wish to participate in this online leisure activity to seek out those operators offering a safe, self-regulating and enjoyable online experience.
GamCare already hosts an online chat room for people concerned with their gambling habits at www.gamcare.org.uk and will be rolling out the first ever, one on one online counselling service during the course of next year.
Professor Peter Collins, Professor of Social Studies at Salford University and a trustee of GamCare, added:
“There are as yet no reliable studies of the extent of online gambling in the UK or elsewhere. The best estimate is that remote gambling accounts for between 3 and 5 per cent of all gambling that takes place in this country.
“Remote gambling does carry special risks in respect of problem gambling due to its exceptional convenience. That is why it is so important that governments, as ours is doing, make every effort to regulate this activity effectively and that organisations, such as GamCare, develop rigorous codes of practice to minimise the risks and to ensure that players who do develop problems have immediate access to free, expert and confidential help and advice.”
End