Key points:
- Tim Miller held a speech at the Gambling Harms Action Lab launch, the initiative from Money and Mental Health
- The Commission has been working alongside Warwick Business School to find ways to address harmful gambling though financial data
- Action Lab will push for responsible gambling tools and support within banks, such as blocking tools
Tim Miller, Executive Director of the Gambling Commission, has delivered a speech at the launch of the Gambling Harms Action Lab.
This was held on 5 November and the Gambling Harms Action Lab is the newest programme by Money and Mental Health, an institute founded by Martin Lewis.
Miller started off by explaining how several years ago, he thought there was a “potential positive role that the financial services industry could play in helping to identify and address the harms” that come with gambling.
"You may not be the cause of gambling harms, but you have an amazing opportunity to be part of the solution. To work collaboratively to find creative ways of better protecting gambling consumers, consumers who are also your customers” - Tim Miller
The Gambling Harms Action Lab is a three-year programme led by the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, which will address gambling-related harm through the financial sector.
It will give banks the tools necessary to identify and support customers who are experiencing gambling harm, such as blocking tools.
“Money and Mental Health have already played a vital role in helping to encourage the involvement of the financial services industry in this vital area of consumer protection work,” he continued. “The Gambling Harms Action Lab will help to bring some structure and focus to those collaborative efforts.”
Good to know: In the past year, financial services have granted the Gambling Commission permission to use anonymised consumer data alongside Warwick Business School as part of an initiative to understand and tackle gambling harm.
“The debate around gambling can be notoriously febrile at times with opinion and hyperbole often distracting from facts and evidence, Miller said. “Too often it leaves people arguing over word choice or tone rather than staying on task and working to make things better for consumers. As a regulator, and an official statistics body, we are doing all we can to raise the standard of the debate by remaining focussed on the evidence base.”
Finally, he concluded: “That is very much what I hope the Action Lab will be able to deliver - using the extensive understanding of consumer behaviours and experiences that financial services have to build an ever-stronger evidence base to identify consumer protections and interventions that actually work.
"So to those in the room today that are from the financial sector my message to you is 'you may not be the cause of gambling harms but you have an amazing opportunity to be part of the solution. To work collaboratively to find creative ways of better protecting gambling consumers, consumers who are also your customers.' So please do not miss your chance to help make gambling safer.”
