GambleAware demands mandatory donations despite receiving £34.7m this year
GambleAware has published its list of annual donations for 2021-2022, a period when it received £34.7m ($42.9m) in donations from the gambling industry.
The UK’s “Big Four” operators accounted for 89% of all donations, following their joint commitment to increase donations to 1% gross gaming yield (GGY) by 2024 – still a very small amount overall.
The “Big Four” consists of Entain, William Hill, Flutter Entertainment and bet365.
Despite this year marking the highest number of donations ever received by GambleAware (£15m greater than last year), the charity feels there remains inconsistency in donations from other operators.
GambleAware will continue to call for a mandatory levy on GGY, to provide what it believes will be a more consistent and sustainable funding model for the prevention of gambling harms.
It goes further, arguing that mandatory funding models would enable better long-term planning and commissioning for gambling prevention services.
The CEO of GambleAware, Zoë Osmond, commented: “These donations fund essential services for the prevention of gambling harms, helping build a coalition of expertise to tackle and prevent gambling harms across Great Britain.
“We welcome the commitment from the ‘Big Four’ operators to increase their donations over the coming years; however, there remains an inconsistent approach to funding across the wider gambling industry, which leads to uncertainty and instability.
“That’s why we are calling on the Government to introduce a mandatory levy on the gambling industry as a condition of licence. The gambling industry should take the necessary and responsible steps by matching its success to the scale of gambling harms risk, especially at a time of rising financial and economic hardship across the country.
“This would commit much more funding to treatment, prevention, and research per year – and could be delivered in a matter of months.”
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