Guardian Newspaper Criticizes Responsible Gambling Trust ‘Conflict of Interest’

Neil Goulden claims that industry participation in research is important to the understanding of issue gambling and to the ongoing work of the RGT.
Neil Goulden, head of the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) into the UK, has been called away by Britain’s Guardian newspaper for an obvious conflict of interests.
As seat associated with the RGT, Goulden presides throughout the country’s leading charity dedicated to minimizing issue gambling, and yet he is additionally a former chair for the Association of British Bookmakers ABB), an industry lobby group.
The positions had been held concurrently between 2012 and mid-2014.
Goulden’s affiliations to both groups are no secret, of course; being a board that is former of Ladbrokes and previous president of the Gala Coral Group, he is certainly much a public face of the gambling industry.
But, due to the fact Guardian opined this week, the fact that RGT is chaired by a doyen of the industry and funded by donations from gambling organizations raises questions about its integrity as well as the nature that is balanced of research.
As well as money education, prevention, and treatment solutions for problem gamblers, RGT commissions research devoted to broadening the understanding of problem gambling issues.
But because of its affiliations, does it avoid asking the questions that are really tough the industry, and is its research system totally separate of industry interests?
Goulden Responds
When contacted by the Guardian, Goulden insisted that his position as an industry insider, and the participation of the industry as whole, is, in fact, integral to researching and ultimately understanding problem gambling.
‘[The video gaming industry] would not need released data or have taken the actions it continues to take in prevention of damage without my influence that is personal and,’ he stated. ‘I have continually advised the industry to do more to protect at-risk customers and to share most useful practice and to better communicate what they are doing and its impact.
‘True damage minimization can simply be fully effective if it engages aided by the industry and that the 100,000 people used in the industry just take their social duties really,’ he continued.
‘The present RGT research has provided clear pointers to anyone committed to reducing damage and the subsequent actions taken by the federal government, the regulator and the industry have considerably reduced volumes through the band of at-risk customers.’
FOBT Criticism
But, the RGT has been criticized by anti-gambling groups for the failure to condemn great britain’s notorious fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs), prevalent in high-street bookmaking shops across the country.
These machines have been dubbed ‘the split cocaine for the street that is high because they enable customers to bet up to £100 ($146) every 20 seconds on digital casino games like roulette.
‘RGT refused to address the key question of whether FOBTs cause gambling related harm because of their addictive characteristics,’ reported a spokesperson for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, of a RGT research on the subject, posted in 2013 when Goulden had been chair of both the RGT and ABB.
‘We are worried that the chair of the trust had been busy devising lobbying techniques for the bookmakers to boost their image when this research was first announced. This has to be looked at.’
Goulden reacted that the extensive research questions associated with 2013 study were developed by the UK Gambling Commission and also the Minister for the Department of society, Media and Sport, and included he had no impact on the commissioning, presentation, or interpretation of the findings.
New Lithuanian Gambling Regime Promises ‘Severe’ Crackdown on Unlicensed Market
Lithuanian President Dalia casino-online-australia.net GrybauskaitÄ—, who finalized the online gambling reforms into legislation final summer. (Image: grybauskaite1.lrp.lt)
Lithuania gets tough on unlicensed online gambling operators. New powers engendered by the united states’s recent gambling reforms enable the ministry of finance to simply take strict measures against overseas companies offering gambling that is illegal Lithuanian residents.
The gambling regulator (GCA) has warned it will just take ‘severe action’ against unlicensed websites.
From January first, all financial institutions, from banks to payment providers, are actually legally bound to refuse transactions pertaining to online that is illegal gambling.
Meanwhile, GCA has brand new abilities to issue legally binding orders to network service providers to block access to offshore gambling sites.
GCA has drawn up a blacklist of websites non grata, a list that probably will expand as it seeks to widen the net over ‘gambling operators who organize remote gambling illegally and target the Republic of Lithuania.’
Network service providers that fail to try out by the brand new guidelines face hefty fines.
Pressure from EU
‘These modifications to regulation have actually been commonly publicized and will be strictly legitimately enforced,’ Virginijus Dauksys, director of this GCA, stated. ‘Gaming operators need to be licensed to run into the Republic of Lithuania,’ he included.
Lithuania had been one of six EU member states chastised by the European Commission in 2013 for its failure to regulate online gambling, and the united states’s reforms are extremely much an effect of EU pressure.
The regime that is new which launched its doorways to certification on January 1st, is comparable to that of Belgium for the reason that it needs that an operator must be included as a company in Lithuania and also issued share capital of at the very least €1.1 million ($1.18 million). Remote gaming licensees must also partner with an existing casino that is land-based the united states.
Expansion To Be Tightly Controlled
Lithuania previously had no measures in place to legislate for remote gambling, and so the new reforms will be observed as progress, but the EU, along with its insistence on free movement of services across borders, is still prone to disapprove of the restrictiveness of its licensing requirements.
On signing the reforms into law last summer, Lithuanian President Dalia GrybauskaitÄ— warned that gambling tasks would not be promoted and gambling expansion would be tightly managed.
Therefore, without much scope for marketing or advertising, it is difficult for operators to establish themselves within the market and for gamblers to distinguish between the certified and markets that are unlicensed.
It also stays to be seen how many international operators will seek to base their businesses into the country, as needed by the new legislation.
A GCA spokesperson told TotallyGaming.com on Wednesday that it had so far received only one application for licensing while the licensing window has admittedly been open for just one week.
Steve Wynn Reportedly Thinking About Building North New Jersey Casino
Steve Wynn is allegedly interested in returning to New that is northern Jersey building the first non-Atlantic City gambling resort, some three decades after he left the Garden State, vowing never to get back. (Image: bloomberg.com)
Steve Wynn folded on his Golden Nugget Atlantic City property in 1987 and vowed to never ever return to the ‘corrupt and stupid’ East Coast mecca that is gambling. Nevertheless now one state legislator says the casino billionaire is interested in returning to nj.
Wynn isn’t taking a look at the resort that is struggling he departed from nearly 30 years ago.
Instead, he’s eyeing North Jersey across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
Wynn desires to be the company that is first construct a gambling facility in your community.
Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-District 32) told NJ.com, ‘I have talked to many individuals that have actually expressed interest in visiting New Jersey. Mr. Wynn is one of those individuals.’
Politics as Usual
Prieto isn’t alone in wishing to bring gambling north and out of the isolated coastline town. Their counterpart that is legislative Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-District 3), agrees that allowing resort casinos to operate nearer to New York City would create thousands of jobs and create millions in new revenue for Trenton.
Nevertheless the two Garden State legislators disagree on whom must certanly be permitted to possess and manage the North Jersey properties.
Sweeney really wants to mandate that in order for a company to be granted one of this New that is northern Jersey licenses, the organization must currently operate in Atlantic City. Prieto is willing to adhere to that command for one casino, but not both.
‘We have people that spent hundreds of dollars in Atlantic City,’ Sweeney said. ‘Steve Wynn left Brand New Jersey.’
Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-District 28) says Sweeney’s decree is flawed in reasoning. ‘Why would we exclude a person like Steve Wynn? I’d be disappointed if we … excluded folks of his caliber.’
Steve Wynn is one of the most names that are notable the gambling industry, also though their company presently only maintains four properties, two in Las Vegas and two in Macau.
Ending Monopoly
If you have ever participated in a game title of Monopoly, you understand how excruciatingly difficult it can be for the game to visited an in depth. That’s also the instance for monopolies in real life.
The properties on the monopoly that is original game are predicated on roads in Atlantic City, the town that has held a real monopoly on casino gambling within the state since 1976.
It absolutely was 40 years ago that nj legalized gambling, but voters thought we would limit gaming to only Atlantic City at that time. Since then, the issue of expanding gambling has repeatedly been presented in the state legislature and on ballots.
The Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford is the most likely location for a northern Jersey gambling facility. Accompanied by way of a horse racetrack, MetLife Stadium and baseball arena, the $3.5 billion Xanadu Meadowlands retail and entertainment destination broke ground in the early 2000s.
The project that is mammoth including an indoor ski slope, spurred one controversy after another. The investment company that was bankrolling the project, Xanadu remains under construction and under a new name, now dubbed the American Dream Meadowlands from its aesthetically unpleasing exterior colors to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers.
Gambling into the northern counties of New Jersey no longer seems to be a dream, but the process of awakening the market is yet to be dependant on the continuing state Legislature.