The Bishop of St Albans received the following written answers on 11th July 2023:
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay on 15 June 2023 (HL8253) what training is provided to retailers about the risk of National Lottery and society lottery products.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con): The 2018 Health Survey for England showed that lotteries were associated with the lowest rates of problem gambling of all gambling products considered, and the National Lottery Operator is mandated under its licence to have player protection strategies.
The Operator’s training programme, ‘Being a Responsible Retailer’, supports National Lottery retailers on risks related to National Lottery products and focuses on supporting healthy playing and preventing underage playing of the National Lottery. This consists of online and face-to-face training, healthy playing knowledge checks, and further support where needed. The operator also provides retailers with advice through leaflets and telephone calls to improve awareness and to help the retention of responsible retailing principles. Retailers are also trained in engaging with customers about healthy playing — including direction to GamCare as appropriate — and about signs they should look out for to help identify players who may be at risk.
To ensure that retailers are benefiting from and acting on its training, the operator runs a healthy playing ‘mystery shopper’ programme, alongside the ‘Operation 18’ programme to ensure that retailers are correctly asking for proof of age. As a result of these initiatives, 94% of National Lottery retailers visited in 2022/23 successfully passed a healthy playing knowledge check. If a retailer does not pass these visits or checks, it is offered additional training.
Each society lottery operator will have their own specific approach to training retailers about the risk of its products, and must comply with the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice and Social Responsibility Code for society lotteries.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans asked His Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay on 15 June (HL8254), what assessment they have made of any loopholes to this restriction, in particular the ‘Pay by Phone’ loophole.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con): In April 2020, new licence conditions came into effect which banned both online and land-based gambling operators from accepting payments from credit cards (including via e-wallets) for gambling services.
The Gambling Commission has published an interim evaluation of the ban on credit card gambling which showed that the measure had been successful and that there had not been widespread displacement to other forms of credit as payment, but the Commission has committed to continue to monitor the situation.
‘Pay by Phone’ transactions are not directly covered by the ban but are limited by law to £40 per transaction and no more than £240 per month. These limits cover all services charged to telephone bills, such as music downloads. This is not a common means of spending on gambling, currently accounting for around 0.4% of annual gross gambling yield (including lotteries), and the Phone-paid Services Authority market review suggests that gambling expenditure via telephone has decreased since the credit card ban was introduced.
The Church of England in Parliament 
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