Conservative manifesto brands Gambling Act as analogue

Mirroring Labour and Lib-Dem pledges, the Conservative Party states that it will sanction a review of the Gambling Act after publishing its ‘Get Brexit Done – Unleash Britain’s Potential’ General Election 2019 manifesto.

Speaking in Telford (Shropshire) this Sunday, PM Boris Johnson presented the 60-page document outlining how the Conservative government would ‘forge a new Britain’ outside of EU restraints.

A confident PM underlined that should the Conservative Party secure a majority, he would instruct Parliament to bring his negotiated Brexit deal forward, allowing the UK to leave the EU by January 2020.

Central to the manifesto, the Conservative Party seeks to update the UK’s digital codes, stating that it will ‘legislate to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online’.

In his speech, Johnson underlined that the government will protect children from online harms and ‘the most vulnerable from accessing harmful content’.

Pointing to the Gambling Act, Johnson said that its mandate had become an ‘analogue law in a digital age’. “We will review it”, he added before explaining that this review on legislative make-up will cover loot boxes and ‘credit card misuse’.

UK youth charities and the Children Commissioner of England have raised concerns over the lack of regulation attached to loot boxes, described as randomised in-game purchases which can mirror gambling mechanisms.

At present, Parliament awaits the conclusion of the House of Lords’ Select Committee’s research around the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry’ on UK society. In its latest hearing, the Lords Committee probed former gambling addicts on their access to loans and credit financing – detailing how they could bypass systems.