View this email in your browser

November newsletter

Hello there,

I hope you’re keeping well. It’s a slightly shorter, but nonetheless equally important update today.

This week is so-called ‘Safer Gambling Week’. After spending £1.5 billion each year pushing people to gamble, the gambling industry spends a week patronising their customers with empty slogans about personal responsibility and setting limits, while conveniently ignoring anything about their dangerous products and practices.

The fact that it emerged this week that Sky Vegas emailed many people recovering from gambling addiction who had excluded themselves from receiving marketing – offering them 100 'free spins' and other inducements – tells you everything you need to know about the gambling industry's approach to customer safety. This sort of industry callousness, happening this week of all weeks, is why it’s more important than ever to sign and share Annie Ashton's petition to end so-called 'free bets'.

Our very own Will Prochaska has nicely articulated our broader position on Safer Gambling Week in this piece on Politics Home – please do have a read by clicking below.

We’ve already seen many individuals and organisations join us in rejecting 'Safer Gambling Week' and we encourage you to join them by emailing or tweeting the Gambling Commission, or by retweeting this tweet.

In other news, the roll-out of our education programme has continued apace. I’m delighted to report that last month the programme was piloted in several schools in Northern Ireland and delivered at Lewes Football Club, in south-east England.

The club’s first-team goalkeeper, Lewis Carey, has experience of gambling harm and delivered the programme alongside James Grimes, our Head of Education, to the youth team and members of the local community. Please watch the BBC report below for more.

We’ve already received some wonderful feedback about the programme and are looking forward to continuing the roll-out across the country.

BBC South East news report from 22nd October.

Since my last update, we’ve launched a video with the Coalition Against Gambling Ads (CAGA), highlighting the pernicious influence on children of gambling advertising in football. It features actor Isy Suttie (aka Dobbie from Peep Show) and a voiceover by Maxine Peake and has had tens of thousands of views already. Please do watch and share with family, friends and colleagues.

The Coalition Against Gambling Ads' latest video – Saturday Squad

Lastly, Paul Merson’s documentary “Football, Gambling and Me” aired on BBC One last month, featuring several Gambling with Lives’ families – see below for the clip. You can watch the whole documentary here.

Gambling with Lives' families on Paul Merson: Football, Gambling & Me

That’s it from me this time. As always, thank you for your support.

All the best,

Charles Ritchie
Co-Chair of Trustees