The UK gambling industry’s self-funded problem gambling charity says operators have been increasing their donations, albeit still well below the optimum level.
This week, the GambleAware charity announced the total amount of money pledged and received by UK-licensed gambling operators in the six months ending September 30 was £5.4m. The sum is slightly ahead of where it was last year at this time, which ended up totaling £9.6m for the 12 months ending March 31.
GambleAware’s target is for all UK gambling operators to contribute a minimum of 0.1% of their annual gross gaming revenue, a target that the industry has never successfully met. However, the UK’s increasingly hostile climate towards the gaming industry appears to be having an impact on operators’ willingness to dig deep and give until it hurts.
In terms of donations pledged or received by GambleAware in its fiscal H1, GVC Holdings led the way with £1.46m, the same amount that GVC actually contributed in the previous fiscal year. Similarly, bookies William Hill have pledged £1m, same as last year.
Online betting giant Bet365 has actually donated £868k, the same amount it ponied up last year. Rank Group, through its Grosvenor Casinos and Mecca Bingo brands, has so far donated £284,500. Betway (£160k) and BetVictor (£153,500) were also notable givers.
Flutter Entertainment, which under its previous identity Paddy Power Betfair donated £445k last year, was a no-show on the H1 list, as were a number of last year’s major contributors, but the fiscal year is still young.
That £5.4m total doesn’t include the £1.29m GambleAware collected via its share of regulatory settlements imposed on two operators – LeoVegas (£600k) and GameSys (£690k) – by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for various regulatory shortcomings. Of the two operators, only LeoVegas appears on GambleAware’s current donation list (with around £70k donated so far).
GambleAware asks operators with annual revenue below £250k to contribute a minimum of £250 but the H1 list includes some donations well below that minimum, presumably intended to allow the individuals to don a fig leaf of involvement. That said, none of these range as low as the truly token £1 contributions made by some operators and individuals in the 2018-19 report.
InTouch Games, which reached a £2.2m settlement with the UKGC in May over lax anti-money laundering protocols, contributed the minimum £250 during GambleAware’s 2018-19 report. GambleAware’s H1 report shows InTouch contributing a total of £14,100 this time around.
