The British government has unveiled the recipients of over £39m in funds from the statutory levy on gambling harms, but as expected the announcement has not gone down without a hint of controversy.
The list of successful grant applications includes some familiar names: GamCare, operator of the National Gambling Helpline, has received £4m; Gambling Harm UK walks away with £1.2m; YGAM, an educational organisation, has been given £3m.
BetBlocker and Gamban, rival gambling blocking software providers, have received £1.1m and £2.7m each, respectively. This is a particularly big victory for the latter as Gamban was left out of the first tranche of grants, totaling £25m, back in April. This forced the company to adopt a paid subscription model in England and Wales, but it has now returned to free service in both countries.
However, the presence of Gambling With Lives (GWL), an organisation which doubles up as a support and treatment provider to familes who have lost loved ones to suicide but also as an advocacy group calling for gambling law reform, has ruffled a few industry feathers.
OHID has opted to grant GWL a total of £1.8m. On top of this, the group’s Chapter One initiative, a gambling harm education service, has received £3m, bringing the total received by the organisation to close to £5m.
So, why are some industry figures disgruntled? The main reason is that GWL has been, as mentioned above, highly active in lobbying around gambling law, particularly during the 2020-2023 review of the 2005 Gambling Act and in the run up to the successive 2025 and 2026 budgets which saw gambling taxes raised both times.
The organisation has received extensive financial support from Derek Webb, a former professional gambler turned gambling reform lobbyist who has also helped bankroll the Campaign to End Gambling Advertising (CEGA).
Some gambling industry figures have taken to LinkedIn in the aftermath of OHID’s announcement to express displease at the prospect of a “prohibitionist” organisation getting grants from a statutory levy that the industry itself pays into.
“I’m not anti the levy, and there’s some outstanding organisations on the list who will spend their allocation well providing meaningful help to those who suffer from gambling related harms,” wrote Nigel Harvey, a gambling compliance consultant.
“It’s the prohibitionist grifters that winds me up. GWL for example getting £1.8m to spend another two years making up stats to further their aim to destroy a pastime safely enjoyed by millions of people with little consequence other than a pointless note from the GC saying ‘please don’t do that’.”
Harvey was far from the only person to express this sentiment. But how fair is it?
Is all fair in love and charity?
There’s no denying that GWL is an advocacy group. However, to give OHID some credit it appears that the bulk of funding has gone towards GWL’s Chapter One division, which as mentioned is an educational organisation.
This does still leave the question as to what GWL plans to do with it. SBC News has reached out to GWL for comment on what projects or programmes it plans to direct the funding to, but has not received a response at the time of publication.
Gaining a better understanding of OHID’s procedures in the grant making process would also shine some light on this, and perhaps ease industry concerns about the presence of advocacy groups on the funding list – or maybe exacerbate them.
OHID’s announcement explained that the funding decisions – made for applications submitted between 14 January-6 February 2026 – were subject to a “thorough, fair and transparent assessment process, in line with the published eligibility requirements and scoring criteria”.
Applicants were also subject to due diligence checks to ensure decisions were taken in line with public funding risk and assurance thresholds. All applicants also had to submit a declaration of interest form and commit to “not receiving direct industry funding” after 1 April 2026.
This would not be a problem for the likes of GWL, which as one would expect has long maintained its distance from the industry, but for some small-to-mid-sized third sector organisations this has been somewhat of an adjustment after years under the GambleAware-administered voluntary system – GambleAware of course now defunct.
SBC News has reached out to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), the government department which oversees OHID, for further information about the criteria grant applicants are subject to.
