Reduce the speed and ease of online gambling in order to reduce harm

Speaker: Philip Newall, Lecturer, School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol

In jurisdictions that have historically restricted online gambling, the fast and immersive nature of electronic gambling machines (EGMs) means that they have generally been the gambling product most strongly associated with harm. However, a recent international meta-analysis found that only gambling online had a stronger point estimate association with harm than EGM use. The UK has the world’s largest regulated online gambling market, and there the main proposals to reduce the harmfulness of online gambling have centred around limits on either stake sizes or expenditure. However, any restrictive approach has the twin downsides of failing to protect those who experience harm below the limit, while unnecessarily restricting the freedoms of those who can gamble safely above the limit. Contrastingly, reducing the speed and ease of online gambling can decrease the risk of harm across the entire population of online gamblers. I illustrate this point using international examples across a range of online gambling products.