SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The Irish Institute of Public Health (IPH) has released a summary of its actions and results throughout last year to address some of the most pressing issues on gambling harm.
Reported on by IPH Public Health Development Officer Dr. Ciara Reynolds, the available data shows an increasing focus placed by the organisation on creating a strong bridge between public health and gambling.
One of the key aspects of this strategy entails reducing harm by reducing exposure, seeking to implement a total healthcare overhaul rather than just zooming in on an individual level.
IPH’s work in 2023 has shown that more protections are needed for vulnerable target groups such as children, those with living in poverty and/or with mental health issues to safeguard them from the harms of gambling.
Gambling among Irish children
A co-authored study by the IPS and the TobaccoFree Research Institute Ireland was published in September 2023, identifying a trend among 16-year-olds on the island.
“Between one in four and one in five” children have said that they have gambled at least once over the past 12 months from the time of the study, with more boys than girls. One child for every 10 had been engaging in excessive gambling, with one in 18 experiencing problem gambling.
A quarter of all 16-year-olds surveyed had most frequently gambled online. This gambling behaviour consisted mostly of bets made on sports or animal racing.
Policy(in the)making
In Northern Ireland, the IPH continues to feed all of its available analysis and evidence into a recommendation framework presented to the All Party Group (APG) on Reducing Harm Related to Gambling, which was established in 2017 with the sole purpose “to address issues associated with gambling related harm in our community”.
For Ireland, this data is sent to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice to inform better policy decision-making when it comes to tailoring the Ireland Gambling Regulation Bill for a more refined public health framework.
The Bill is actually expected to pass the Dáil (lower house) in the following months. It sets out to introduce the so-called “Social Impact Fund” to finance research into problem gambling, as well as a centralised national self-exclusion scheme among others.
Incoming developments in Ireland will see the APG publishing a response to an inquiry into the approach of the health sector towards gambling harm. IPH expects this to include recommendations on further child protections based on previous IPH studies.
Republic has no timeline on GRB coming to law
At the close of 2022, the parties of Ireland tri-coalition government agreed on the regulatory terms of the Gambling Regulation Bill (GRB), the Republic’s new regulatory framework for gambling which will succeed the defunct and near-century-old Irish Betting Act of 1931.
The GRB was meant to come into law in 2023, however the Bill remains stuck in the Dali since July, as ministers review articles related to how the Ireland’s gambling market will be reorganised.
The government maintains its plans to establish the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRA), led by CEO designate Anne Marie Caulfield, but as stands the GRB maintains no timeline to ascent into law.
The delay of the GRB is related to cross-party divisions in how Ireland will reform its criminal codes and advertising/media laws for gambling and unsettled terms on the funding of horseracing as a heritage sports.
The Ministry of Justice has warned the tri-coalition government of the significance of upholding the GRB as Irish law courts cannot reference the Betting Act of 1931 to judge disputes related to modern betting/gambling.
