Northern Ireland’s gambling rules could be adjusted to stricter regulatory standards which have been unveiled across of the UK after the Church of England interfered.
The Bishop of St Albans, Dr Alan Smith, addressed the House of Lords by tabling an amendment which is to make way for possible unification between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland, which has been in the Government’s plans for years. Under the proposed amendment, gambling legislation is to be added to several areas on which the UK Government would have to issue a report by September as part of its efforts to tackle spreading gambling sector in Northern Ireland.
Christine Hardman, the Bishop of Newcastle, shared an opinion on the measure in the House of Lords. She explained that the current lack of consistency between the gambling regulation in mainland Britain and Northern Ireland meant that tighter regulatory measures which have been recently introduced in the UK, including the reduced maximum stake of controversial fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) which does not currently apply to betting operators in Northern Ireland.
The Bishop of Newcastle explained to the House of Lords that the inconsistencies between the gambling regulation in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK mostly affect the lives of people who are addicted to gambling.
Gambling Legislation in Northern Ireland Should Be Updated
The amendment, which has been proposed by the Bishop of St Albans, was adopted without any vote by the Government after Baroness Smith, the Leader of the Opposition, and a peer of the Democratic Unionist Party and the Liberal Democrats welcomed the proposal and praised its sponsor.
The Bishop of St Albans was happy with the outcome and further explained that people from Northern Ireland are currently three times more likely to develop a problem related to gambling than people in the rest of the country. He also shared that in the rest of mainland Britain competent authorities are taking measures to tackle gambling and its possible harmful impact on society.
Dr Alan Smith reminded that the Government rolled out the reduced maximum stakes of FOBTs earlier this year and that the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) is the body which regulates the industry independently. On the contrary, the gambling legislation in Northern Ireland is currently outdated and needs to be modernised.
According to the Church of England, represented by the Bishop of St Albans, Northern Ireland currently bypasses the Gambling Act of 2005 and instead uses an equivalent of the piece of legislation from 1985. Unfortunately, this legislation is simply out-of-date, which results in legally creating so-called grey areas in which gambling companies offer their services untroubled and unregulated.
This is exactly why the Government has been encouraged by the Church to quickly deliver a report into the local gambling sector and move on with proper harmonisation between the legal regimes of mainland Britain and Northern Ireland to make sure that the Province also have contemporary gambling legislation and regulation.
- Author
Daniel Williams
