People suggest how other institutions and services, including financial services, workplaces, and education in schools need to improve to prevent and address gambling harm. They want all the organisations and services to play their part.
Financial services
Most people were financially impacted by another’s gambling. They often had to deal with debt, take over the management of the finances and keep the household running – taking on a large amount of responsibility.
They wanted more access to financial support and advice. They said that banks and debt services need to have more knowledge of gambling harm and do more to address it.
They said that banks should do more to intervene when they can see that somebody is gambling lots of money online. Banks should also offer the opportunity to block banking transactions from business cards and not just personal cards.
They need to have some experience with gambling-related debts because and sort of like the things that you need, the blockers on your accounts and those kinds of things, I think. Because your general debt advice services, I don’t think have all that knowledge or have the experience to be able to provide you with that support.
The financial support as well in terms of services. What I would have given in those first few weeks for some financial advice on how best to manage it.
Did you know you can’t stop a business card being used for online gambling? While Barclays, Santander, etc, they all bang on about, “Look what we’re doing to stop personal gambling.” I’ve tried with Barclays to put it on Gamban. I’ve tried to– In a personal banking app, you can go into it, and actually not be able to gamble using your personal bank card, but you can’t do it with a business card… Also, he didn’t have to verify. He’d memorized the number and didn’t have to do any verification at all. He just inputs the information. There needs to be more due diligence.
By the time I started seeing him, he couldn’t get a phone contract. One thing that he told me along the way was your credit history resets after a period of time. I’m not actually sure to what extent that is true. It’s like a separate issue of there could be things in place to stop people being able to gamble, but also, what potential affordances might there be so that it’s not the case of people in recovery are unfairly disadvantaged for a long period of time.
Education
People talk about how important it is to teach young people about gambling harms, because they did not receive information about the risks of gambling and because they are concerned that children are being exposed to gambling from a young age.
I think more stuff in schools definitely. Because really these kids are starting…it’s certainly in the amount of exposure they have to things that they probably can’t even quite compute or understand, but yet they’re being fed information that’s going to be harmful to them. I think schools definitely should make a priority that at least there’s somebody going in telling them about the pitfalls of what could go down and maybe at a younger age.
Kids are aware of alcohol addiction and drug addiction. They should be aware of the dangers of gambling addiction. We need to flood teenagers with the dangers of this.
Although information about gambling has recently been introduced into the school curriculum, some people feel that this education needs to start when the children are younger. It should also include information on how to manage finances and debt.
Education reform. But I fear personally, I think it needs to come a bit earlier than what the current offering is. So, when you look at the statistics of how many 15, 16-year-olds are currently gambling or have got problems with gambling, I feel like it needs to come way earlier… So, working on those aspects, the money, the awareness, the risk vs. reward, those kinds of things that children can learn that will then help them with their future gambling behaviours… Money, finances, learning about debt and learning how to budget and little things like that I think need to come first before it gets too little too late which it seems like it is just now.
Some emphasise the importance of people with lived experience younger in age going into schools to educate children about the risks of gambling as they would be more relatable.

Workplace
Some people say there needs to be an improvement in workplace policies for gambling and mental health. There are often workplace policies for drugs and alcohol, but gambling is typically neglected.
I’m not too sure there’s been as good a focus on mental health or disabilities. I know that’s improving because I’ve seen that written into policies. But again, quite often a lot of people talk about alcohol or talk about drugs in policies. Very few talk about gambling or gaming in policies… Trying to encourage openness is important by the employer.

I think more wider, private companies, businesses, public sector organizations, anyone, I would say make sure you try to incorporate a level of awareness around gambling addiction as much in your policies as you do maybe in other aspects.