Help us fight dangerous misinformation on gambling

The Government estimates there are between 117 and 496 gambling-related suicides every year – an average of one a day. We’re helping Luke’s widow, Annie, in her campaign to tell the truth about the gambling industry.

One of the loudest voices in the debate around gambling harm is the charity GambleAware. This organisation calls itself an “independent charity”, but is almost entirely funded by the gambling industry.

GambleAware runs high-profile advertising campaigns which experts say “imply that gamblers are a unique category of people who are personally to blame for their losses”, reflecting “a discourse promoted by the gambling industry which attempts to shift blame for gambling-related harm away from aggressively marketed harmful products and on to individual gamblers”. Instead of helping people to stop gambling, the charity blames the people it should help and advises them to gamble “responsibly”.

A tool on the GambleAware website makes this plain. Fill in the forms as if you are an underage gambler, feeling shame and guilt as you spend every single penny of your £100 a week earnings on gambling, and the tool will advise you to reduce your habit to once a week. Even in this extreme case, it doesn’t suggest the obvious thing to do: stop gambling.

Charities are supposed to help people in need, not serve industry interests, and they are supposed to present information on controversial subjects without bias. So we’re supporting Annie and the gambling expert Will Prochaska as they ask the Charity Commission to launch an investigation into GambleAware.

They’re challenging a multibillion-pound industry with deep political connections – gambling firms spend tens of thousands of pounds a year lobbying politicians. And it’s an industry that relies on making money from people harmed by gambling: 60% of profits come from the 5% of customers who are gamblers at risk.

The Charity Commission must take action and investigate whether GambleAware is breaking charity law by failing in their duties to provide unbiased information – accepting the false narrative that gambling is a problem for individuals instead of a problem with the industry. And we’re preparing to take legal action if they refuse.

Harmful industries have no place in the charity sector. Help us unmask them.

• Since this article was written, the Charity Commission has concluded its statutory compliance case on GambleAware and states that is has been assured by GambleAware’s trustees that it has taken appropriate steps to ensure its independence from the gambling industry.  Good Law Project remains concerned about GambleAware’s independence from the gambling industry. We are not reassured by this conclusion due to a pattern of poor decision-making by the Charity Commission and an ongoing reluctance to hold charities on the political right, or which advocate for money, accountable.