Gambling: MPs call on Gambling Commission to improve Lottery data

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has today published its report on ‘What Next for the National Lottery?’.

The report draws on recommendations that we provided in written evidence, and via an appearance at one of the Committee’s oral evidence sessions.

Why gambling data matters

We’ve been advocating since 2021, working with the APPG on Gambling-Related Harms, for the gambling regulator to ask the industry for more data - both the National Lottery and the wider industry.

Gambling is an industry founded on data. Today, mobile gaming apps track every action a player takes. Yet the regulator hasn’t kept up, so it doesn’t really know which firms and which products are causing harm to vulnerable customers.

The action we need from the National Lottery

As we told the Committee, the Lottery’s rising sales in recent years have been driven by ‘instant win’ and online games. These are potentially more addictive than traditional paper tickets.

However, it’s unclear if the regulator is monitoring their impact, or how the Lottery tracks potential harms - questions from the APPG haven’t been answered.

The Committee’s recommendations

In its report, the Committee echoes our recommendation that the Gambling Commission should collect and share more data from the new Lottery operator:

The Lottery operator and Gambling Commission should collect and share player data with the public, in order to enable independent research into the users of the National Lottery and the potential harms faced by different demographics. This should include frequency of play, types of game played and money spent, as well as demographic data.

And that the Gambling Commission commissions research into harms - especially potential harms caused by personalised advertising:

We recommend that the Gambling Commission commissions research into the gambling harms of National Lottery advertising and marketing, including any personalisation that may lead to the promotion of higher-risk products to vulnerable players.

The Committee also makes welcome recommendations on metrics about the effectiveness of spending.

What happens now

We call on the Gambling Commission to accept these recommendations in full, and consult publicly with gambling harm experts about the data it collects from the new Lottery operator.

More broadly, we support calls from experts for a new independent Gambling Ombudsman with access to gambling firm data - something we hope to see in the forthcoming, long-delayed Gambling White Paper.