If you want safer gambling, driving punters to the black market isn’t the answer

Ahead of the Chancellor’s forthcoming Budget, MPs on the Treasury Select Committee are examining the future of gambling taxes - and the stakes could not be higher. At issue is not just the health of a major British industry, but the safety of millions of people who enjoy a flutter.

As part of that inquiry, I appeared before MPs alongside those calling for a massive tax hike on betting and gaming. The contrast between our positions could not have been more stark.

The Betting and Gaming Council, representing the regulated sector, believes that safer gambling must always come first. That requires a thriving, responsible, regulated industry. Our opponents argue for punitive tax rises of up to 50% on online gaming. They claim it will curb gambling-related harm and raise billions for the Treasury. In reality, it risks achieving the exact opposite.

What struck me most about the evidence sessions was the incoherence of those advocating these proposals. On the one hand, they told MPs that hiking taxes would mean less gambling and therefore (in their view) somehow less harm. On the other, the forecasts in their reports for future revenue assume no such decline in betting activity - in fact, they model continuing (and even enhanced) growth. How can they have it both ways?

The truth is that punitive tax rises would neither protect consumers nor boost the public purse. Instead, they would drive customers towards the unsafe, unregulated black market, where there are no safer gambling standards, no age verification, and no tax receipts for the Exchequer.

Already, 1.5 million Brits stake around £4.3 billion a year with illegal operators. This deprives the Treasury of millions and is exposing players to real risk. Push taxes too high, and that figure will only grow.

No one takes safer gambling more seriously than the regulated sector. For more than 20 years, BGC members have voluntarily contributed tens of millions to fund research, prevention and treatment services for those at risk of gambling-related harm.

In the last four years alone, those contributions have exceeded £170 million, supporting organisations like GamCare, Gordon Moody, and YGAM. From this year, those voluntary payments will be replaced by a statutory levy, fully backed by the BGC, raising £100 million annually - around half of which will go directly to the NHS.

That’s a major dedicated funding stream for tackling harm, something our critics conveniently overlook. And it’s working: according to the NHS Health Survey for England, just 0.4% of adults are classified as problem gamblers. That’s not complacency, it’s evidence that the UK’s regulated industry , with its world-leading safeguards, is making real progress.

Safer gambling is not a slogan; it’s a year-round commitment. Every regulated operator offers a full suite of tools to help customers stay in control - from deposit limits and time-outs to self-exclusion via GamStop.

As I told the Treasury Select Committee: “In terms of online, we are now using things like AI and business intelligence to track behavioural triggers in customers, such as whether they are playing late at night, chasing losses, or using different payment methods. A whole raft of additional measures are in place to make sure we keep players in the regulated space, where there are protections, rather than pushing them into the illegal market, where there are none.”

Our members devote 20 per cent of all advertising on TV, radio and online to safer gambling messages, and we run Safer Gambling Week, which last year saw over 1.5 million accounts use a safer gambling tool and 47% set deposit limits for the first time.

Protecting young people also remains our top priority. No one under 18 can bet with a BGC member and our members’ record on age verification is among the best in retail or leisure - better, in fact, than supermarkets and petrol stations.

We’ve also supported new online stake limits for 18–24-year-olds and back all 62 measures in the Government’s Gambling White Paper. These are balanced, evidence-led reforms designed to keep the public safe while allowing adults to enjoy betting responsibly.

The UK’s regulated betting and gaming sector contributes £6.8 billion to the economy, pays £4 billion in tax, and supports 109,000 jobs - from high streets to hospitality and tech hubs in Leeds, Manchester, and Stoke.

Our members also invest hundreds of millions in British sport every year. They support horse racing, football, darts, snooker, and rugby league through sponsorship and media rights.

Independent analysis by EY found that the tax proposals for 50 per cent, floated by the IPPR and SMF, would be catastrophic: up to 40,000 jobs lost, £3.1 billion wiped from the economy, and as much as £8.4 billion in stakes diverted to the black market. The think tanks’ promise of £3.2 billion in new revenue simply doesn’t add up when you account for those losses.

Everyone wants a safer gambling environment. Driving customers into the shadows of the unregulated market - where there are no age checks, no spending limits and no interventions for at-risk players - helps no one.

The UK’s betting and gaming industry is world-class precisely because it combines entertainment with high standards of consumer protection. We should be proud of that success, not jeopardise it through fantasy economics and punitive taxes.

Much is at stake in the Chancellor’s Budget. Get it wrong, and it’s not just jobs and growth that will suffer - it’s safer gambling itself. If we want to protect consumers and support a safer, stronger industry, we must keep gamblers playing in the regulated market.

Grainne Hurst is CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council.