FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Campaign for Fairer Gambling: UK Medical Journal Exposes Health Harm From Online Gambling

LONDON, UK – A new report published in The Lancet Public Health reveals the urgent need for regulatory reform as the global expansion of commercial gambling is causing widespread and underestimated harm to public health.

“As a philanthropic gambling reform advocate, I started CFG as a US-facing site, knowing how disastrous the UK experience of online gambling has been,” said Derek Webb, founder and funder of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling (CFG). “This damning Lancet report confirms my worst fears: the financially-motivated trade bodies and their associated proponents have been responsible for generational harm to individuals.”

The Lancet Public Health Commission calls for regulatory reform to tackle the health impacts of the rapid global expansion of commercial gambling. Key findings include:

• Gambling harms are far more substantial than previously understood, exacerbated by rapid global expansion and digital transformation of the gambling industry.
• Harms from gambling include physical and mental health problems, relationship breakdown, heightened risk of suicide and domestic violence, increased crime, loss of employment and financial losses.
• An estimated 80 million adults globally experience gambling disorder or problematic gambling.
• The harms of gambling are not evenly distributed; adolescents, children and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic groups are more at risk. Lower- and middle-income countries are less equipped to regulate the industry and deal with the harms it generates.
• Effective and well-resourced regulatory controls and international leadership are urgently needed to reduce the impact of commercial gambling on public health and protect progress on UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Stronger global regulatory controls are needed to reduce the impact of commercial gambling on worldwide health and wellbeing, according to the Lancet Public Health Commission.

The Commission brought together a multidisciplinary group of leading experts in gambling studies, public health, global health policy, risk control and regulatory policy, alongside contributors who have first-hand experience of gambling harms. After reviewing the literature, and figures generated from a systematic review and meta-analysis, the Commissioners concluded that “gambling poses a threat to public health, the control of which requires a substantial expansion and tightening of gambling industry regulation.”

“There is an urgent need for a US federal investigation into online gambling, which did not exist when the last gambling investigation occurred in 1999,” Webb concluded.

CFG is an independent gambling reform group with deep knowledge of the gambling sector’s business and lobbying practices in both the U.K. and the U.S. CFG is dedicated to promoting fairer gambling practices through research, advocacy, and reform. CFG exists to equip policymakers with real, reliable data to foster more informed, balanced debates and ultimately smarter gambling policy. For more information, visit fairergambling.com or follow @fairergambling on X.

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