The Government’s five year plan to liberalise gambling is now holed below the water line after a defeat this week for the Supercasino bill in the House of Lords.
The concurrent votes in the Commons and the Lords were meant to be the culmination of Labour’s attempts to redefine gambling from a vice to a device to help the poor. However now there are severe doubts as to whether the legislation can be passed, and in what form, before Tony Blair steps down. Once Gordon Brown takes over, expected in July, the chances of the bill becoming statute recede further.
Mr Brown is widely reputed to see gambling in a very different light to Blair, a thought backed up by his decisions in his final budget to tax the proposed super-casino at 50% and increase the threshold for the bigger existing casinos to being taxed at 50% of gross gaming yield too.
For over a century the Methodist and Nonconformist churches attempted to persuade politicians to keep gambling to the fringes of British society and they succeeded until 1961 when the first betting shop opened. Casinos until now have been restricted from opening in all but a small minority of areas.
However Tony Blair argued that people regularly visited bingo halls and betting shops and had a right to choose where to spend their money. He said that the government should not stand in their way should they choose to visit casinos, which could bring jobs and money into deprived areas.
The result of this philosophical view was the controversial 2005 Gambling Act in which Tessa Jowell said that the legislation was about protection. She told a select committee “If the proposed bill sees problem gambling rise then it will have failed and be bad legislation”
Both MPs and peers were suspicious of her claims. Meanwhile the law was passed and soon allowed the industry to scrap the 24 hour rule which required that timeframe from registering to be able to play in a casino. Soon after casino bosses trumpeted 100,000 plus
The concurrent votes in the Commons and the Lords were meant to be the culmination of Labour’s attempts to redefine gambling from a vice to a device to help the poor. However now there are severe doubts as to whether the legislation can be passed, and in what form, before Tony Blair steps down. Once Gordon Brown takes over, expected in July, the chances of the bill becoming statute recede further.
Mr Brown is widely reputed to see gambling in a very different light to Blair, a thought backed up by his decisions in his final budget to tax the proposed super-casino at 50% and increase the threshold for the bigger existing casinos to being taxed at 50% of gross gaming yield too.
For over a century the Methodist and Nonconformist churches attempted to persuade politicians to keep gambling to the fringes of British society and they succeeded until 1961 when the first betting shop opened. Casinos until now have been restricted from opening in all but a small minority of areas.
However Tony Blair argued that people regularly visited bingo halls and betting shops and had a right to choose where to spend their money. He said that the government should not stand in their way should they choose to visit casinos, which could bring jobs and money into deprived areas.
The result of this philosophical view was the controversial 2005 Gambling Act in which Tessa Jowell said that the legislation was about protection. She told a select committee “If the proposed bill sees problem gambling rise then it will have failed and be bad legislation”
Both MPs and peers were suspicious of her claims. Meanwhile the law was passed and soon allowed the industry to scrap the 24 hour rule which required that timeframe from registering to be able to play in a casino. Soon after casino bosses trumpeted 100,000 plus
additional visits, three times their estimates and hopes. Opening hours were extended, alcohol was allowed on gaming floors, poker games sprung up in pubs and fixed odds betting terminals emerged in high street betting shops.
Meanwhile critics derided loopholes in the Act. For example the existing 140 casinos are restricted to 20 jackpot slot machines but there is no limit on semi-automated roulette terminals.
At the same time 2.5m people a day play online poker, gambling is available via set-top boxes and telephones and yet the “bricks and mortar” gambling industry is now compelled to struggle to compete with remote gambling.
The Government in the budget introduced measures to tax remote gaming at 15% to ensure that few internet gaming companies, if any, take up any opportunity to open in Britain. This combined with the “no” super-casino vote, is doing much to ensure that Gambling will remain an adjunct to British society rather than a recognised and accepted part of the British culture, at least in the eyes of our law-makers.