Sunday 3 July 2022 11:30 PM Families' plea to ministers arguing over betting reform as Mail audit lays bare ... trends now
Ministers were told to ‘buck up and deliver’ on gambling reform after a Daily Mail audit revealed the devastating toll of betting addiction.
An investigation has uncovered close to 100 suicides in which problem gambling was a significant factor in a decade.
Campaigners said the tragic roll call of names – 36 of whom are pictured here – showed ‘the stark reality’ of the harm caused by ‘greedy and amoral’ companies.
Senior Tories are angered that once-in-a-generation reform looks set to be watered down, and urged Boris Johnson to ignore lobbyists and Treasury penny-pinchers.
Former Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘People are dying. Ministers promised reform and now they need to deliver.’
A final announcement on the reforms was expected this week, but it looks likely to be delayed.
Families whose loved ones have committed suicide due to gambling are calling on ministers to introduce reform. Vicitims pictured left to right: Aaron Armstrong, Aaron Sluman, Chris Bruney, Chris Dyson, Huseyin Yaman and Jack Ritchie
Left to right: Jordan Feek, Joshua Hall, Lee Murphy, Lewis Keogh, Philip Tomlinson and Robert Shone
Key measures to stem the gambling death toll have been diluted as a result of a rift at the top of the Conservative Party.
Gambling minister Chris Philp and the Department of Health are pitted against the Treasury, which is concerned that reform could hit its tax take from gambling.
Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has delayed reform having rejected as ‘un-Conservative’ a tax to fund NHS treatment for gambling addiction, insiders said. He is said to favour a version of the current system in which betting firms voluntarily pay 0.1 per cent of their revenue towards research and treatment. However, campaigners want a legal requirement for them to pay 1 per cent.
Mr Rees-Mogg believes the rules should not stop gamblers who do not have an addiction or debts spending their cash as they wish.
The Mail understands he is backed by Mr Johnson’s deputy chief of staff David Canzini, formerly director of a firm that had Ladbrokes Coral as a client.
But families want stark reforms.
Julie Martin, whose husband Bill Troshupa killed himself in November in front of their 16-year-old son, said: ‘The gambling companies are monsters. Gambling must be regulated securely so people are not losing their lives, and families are not losing loved ones.’
Left to right: Andrew David Nabb, Bill Troshupa, Daniel Clinkscales, David Armstrong, Jimmy Farrell and Joey Beauchamp
