The government’s long-overdue Gambling White Paper finally has a publishing date, the Sunday Times reports – Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans to release the document on 17 April.
The White Paper’s release date comes from Dominic Lawson, the British journalist and long-time gambling critic. His editorial mentions “Gambling with Lives,” the gambling reform campaign spearheaded by the parents of 24-year-old gambling addict Jack Richie, whose November 2018 suicide led to a campaign for stricter gambling controls that, in turn, kicked off the process behind the White Paper.
The Sunday Times on Gambling Reform
As mentioned earlier the White Paper has been a long time coming. The 2019 government first made proposals to reform the gambling sector, but since then, the reform White Paper has been passed around to over 10 different ministers.
“So, it is up to Sunak to do the decent thing,” Lawson’s editorial concludes. “If he wants philosophical justification, he should read an essay by James Noyes recently published by the Social Market Foundation think tank, subtitled “The Conservative Case for Regulating Freedom in a Failed Market.””
It is believed that publishing the White Paper is a matter of urgency for the government, especially following the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC)’s issuing of a record £19 million fine to William Hill earlier last week.
