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Government's plan to make UK capital of internet gambling
Last updated at 00:22am on 09.10.06
Internet gambling has run into problems in the USA
Ministers want to make Britain the world centre of internet gambling, documents released by Whitehall showed today.
The records showed that ministers and officials have met internet gambling tycoons and their representatives no less than 26 times over the past two years.
The details suggest that the Government is engaged in a campaign of cosying up to online gambling concerns as intense as the effort to attract casino firms to set up large-scale new gaming resorts in Britain.
Labour's aim is that 'Britain should become a world leader in the field of online gambling', the papers said.
The closeness of ministers to gambling interests has brought the role of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in particular under scrutiny. Mr Prescott has been criticised since failing to register hospitality and the gift of a cowboy outfit from Philip Anschutz, the tycoon hoping to open the country's first supercasino in the Millennium Dome.
The release of evidence of links between ministers and online gambling interests comes just as the internet gaming firms have run into deep trouble in the United States, where arrests of British internet gambling executives have been followed by a new law which would stop American punters from using their credit cards on line.
Among recent meetings attended by ministers are talks between gambling minister Richard Caborn and heads of the Party Gaming and 888.com group in Gibraltar. Mr Caborn flew to the Rock at taxpayers' expense in July.
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell is scheduled to run a gathering of politicians from around the world at Ascot racecourse at the end of the month which will discuss regulation of the internet industry.
The papers released under Freedom of Information rules show that the Government's aspirations were set out in a briefing note written for Mr Caborn before a meeting with Mark Davies, managing director of the Betfair firm, last July.
The briefing said: 'It is a government-wide policy, and that includes Her Majesty's Treasury, that Britain should become a world leader in the field of on-line gambling, in order to provide our citizens with the opportunity to gamble in a safe, well-regulated environment.'
The safety of internet gambling sites has been under question in the wake of a number of trials in which internet gamblers have mounted up massive losses.
In August, gaming addict Bryan Benjafield was jailed for stealing £1 million from his bosses to use for internet bets.
Benjafield, a 23-year-old bookkeeper, was losing as much as £17,000 a day on horse racing, football matches and casino games while earning £16,000 a year.
Jailing him for five years, Judge Andrew Langdon said: 'It says something for the power of your addiction to gambling that despite the low rate of return on your mindless betting, you carried on despite the obvious consequences.'
The judge added: 'The ease with which a desperate man addicted to gambling could spend enormous sums is bluntly staggering. Internet or online gambling has made it much easier, regretfully, for enormous sums to be spent unthinkingly.'
Internet betting firms lost more than £4 billion off the value of their share prices last week after the legislation from Congress meant an effective shutdown of US operations. Exile from America - where sports betting has always been viewed with much deeper suspicion than in Britain - would mean the firms must concentrate more strongly on the British market in order to keep profits flowing.
Online firms which rely on payment by credit card must currently operate from offshore. But from next September they will be allowed to operate from British bases under British regulation.
The Government's attempt to lure the firms into Britain has already meant they will face a tax of 15 per cent on gross profits, the same taxation applied to traditional bookmakers, and a rate regarded by bookmakers as extremely generous to the internet firms.
Shadow Culture Secretary Hugo Swire accused ministers of favouring the gambling industry over the interests of the public.
'Making Britain the world capital of on-line gambling is a strange objective,' he said. 'The whole point is to make sure we have regulations to prevent problems with gambling.
'Tessa Jowell and her department have been asleep to the problems of on-line gambling.'
Mr Swire added: 'Yet again Miss Jowell and her officials appear to be working for the benefit of the gambling industry.'
Reader views (2)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
I think that worrying about people who will find a way to lose money no matter what you do is idiotic, when we should be finding a way to help people in New Orleans who are still suffering from Katrina. The smart thing would be to tax it and use money to help out Katrina victims as well as pay off war debt. But alas that makes too much sense for politicians. Please give us someone decent to vote for this time, please!
- Chuck Marianik, Lawrenceville, USA
Hooray for Britain where common sense prevails over myth. While the compulsive gambler has always found a way to seek self-destruction, the internet does offer ways to intervene if necessary. Otherwise the availability of micro-limit wagers and access to a world-wide community of like-minded players can be seen as socially beneficial.
The US law will benefit online operators since it makes moving money into, and out of your account more cumbersome. Players will tend to leave money in their casino accounts, and continue to play with it until it is all gone.
Gambling is nothing more than a form of entertainment (although for some reason atheists tend not to gamble), which for most folks is less expensive than many alternatives and no more destrructive than fast food.
Here in America we make decisions based on what "ought" to be so, rather than what is so. And just look where it's got us.
- David Thomas, Kansas City USA
