The Gambling Commission has allocated almost £33m in regulatory settlement funding to charity GambleAware, the largest amount since 2019.
GambleAware said the money it has received would help create “a system stabilisation fund to stabilise the system of gambling harm prevention, support and treatment during the transition period from a voluntary to a statutory levy system”.
The regulator could not confirm whether the new £32.8m payout includes money from a recent £19.2m William Hill Group regulatory settlement, which the firm agreed to pay for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
Supporting organisations affected by the statutory levy
GambleAware said that financial support through the system stabilisation fund will help organisations in England, Scotland and Wales “whose funding streams have been disrupted by the intention to introduce a statutory levy as announced in the government’s gambling white paper”.
There will be two funding windows this year, with the first one closing on 21 August and the second one opening for applications on 6 November and closing on 20 November. Successful organisations will be notified in mid-September.
The charity said that the funding “is not intended to replace the voluntary donations funding model” and will only be for the financial year until 31 March 2024 “as a short-term measure”.
Zoë Osmond, chief executice of GambleAware, said: “We welcome plans for a statutory levy as outlined in the government’s gambling white paper and look forward to its swift implementation. However, this has led to a period of change as industry and the gambling harms research, prevention and treatment sector prepare to transition to the proposed levy.
“Our role as strategic commissioner across the sector means we are able to apply a single overview of the system. With this oversight, we and the Gambling Commission, recognise the uncertainty across the sector, and the need to ensure current projects can continue without any risk of experiencing a funding shortfall.”
More information on the funding and how to apply can be found here.
£94m approved for socially responsible projects
Regulatory settlements can include a payment by a gambling operator to an organisation for socially responsible purposes in lieu of the financial penalty it might have otherwise faced for breach of a licence condition.
The Commission told Civil Society that it does not award money to charities but approves the destination of regulatory settlements that are agreed upon as part of its regulatory processes.
Its data shows that £93.8m in regulatory settlements has been fully or partially matched to socially responsible projects, depending on the agreed payment plan, since 2019.
Before 2019, the Commission had a different, less centralised system for approving these destinations, which might have included but was not limited to, payments to charities for specific projects.
The second largest settlement in records dating back to 2019 was also to GambleAware, which received £8.8m in 2020-21 to ensure it could continue to provide effective treatment and support services and tackle any additional pressures caused by Covid-19.
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