Guardian Newspaper Criticizes Responsible Gambling Trust ‘Conflict of Interest’

Neil Goulden claims that industry involvement in scientific studies are essential to the understanding of issue gambling and to the work of the RGT.
Neil Goulden, head of the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) into the UK, has been called down by Britain’s Guardian newspaper for an obvious conflict of interests.
As seat regarding the RGT, Goulden presides on the country’s leading charity dedicated to minimizing problem gambling, and yet he is also a previous chair associated with Association of British Bookmakers ABB), an industry lobby group.
The positions were held concurrently between 2012 and mid-2014.
Goulden’s affiliations to both groups are no secret, of course; as a board that is former of Ladbrokes and former president of the Gala Coral Group, he is very much indeed a public face of the gambling industry.
But, once the Guardian opined this week, the reality that RGT is chaired with a doyen of the industry and funded by donations from gambling companies raises questions about its integrity while the nature that is balanced of research.
As well as money education, prevention, and treatment solutions for issue gamblers, RGT commissions research devoted to broadening the understanding of problem gambling problems.
But because of its affiliations, does it avoid asking the questions that are really tough the industry, and it is its research system completely independent 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 reality, integral to researching and ultimately understanding problem gambling.
‘[The gaming industry] would not have released information or have taken the actions it continues to take prevention of harm without my individual influence and urging,’ he stated. ‘we have continually advised the industry to do more to protect at-risk customers and to fairly share most readily useful training and to better communicate what they are doing and its impact.
‘True damage minimization can only be fully effective he continued if it engages with the industry and that the 100,000 people employed in the industry take their social responsibilities seriously.
‘The recent RGT research has provided clear pointers to anyone committed to harm that is reducing the subsequent actions taken by the us government, the regulator and the industry have significantly reduced volumes through the group of at-risk customers.’
FOBT Criticism
Nonetheless, the RGT has been criticized by anti-gambling groups because of its failure to condemn the united kingdom’s notorious fixed-odds terminals that are bettingFOBTs), prevalent in high-street bookmaking shops across the country.
These devices have been dubbed ‘the split cocaine of this high street’ because they enable clients to bet up to £100 ($146) every 20 seconds on digital casino games like roulette.
‘RGT refused to address the question that is key of FOBTs cause gambling related harm because of their addictive characteristics,’ complained a spokesperson for the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, of an RGT study in the subject, posted in 2013 whenever Goulden was chair of both the RGT and ABB.
‘We are worried that the chair of the trust ended up being busy devising lobbying techniques for the bookmakers to improve their image when this research was first established. This has to be viewed.’
Goulden reacted that the research questions associated with 2013 study had been developed by the UK Gambling Commission therefore the Minister for the Department of customs, Media and Sport, and included he had no influence on the commissioning, presentation, or interpretation of the findings.
New Lithuanian Gambling Regime Promises ‘Serious’ Crackdown on Unlicensed Market
Lithuanian President Dalia GrybauskaitÄ—, who signed the online gambling reforms into law summer that is last. (Image: grybauskaite1.lrp.lt)
Lithuania is getting tough on unlicensed on line gambling operators. New powers engendered by the united states’s recent gambling reforms allow the ministry of finance to take strict measures against offshore companies offering unlawful gambling to Lithuanian citizens.
The gambling regulator (GCA) has warned it will take ‘severe action’ against unlicensed websites.
From January first, all financial institutions, from banks to cost providers, are now actually legally bound to refuse transactions linked to illegal online gambling.
Meanwhile, GCA has brand new capabilities to issue lawfully binding orders to network service providers to block use of gambling that is offshore.
GCA has drafted a blacklist of web sites non grata, a list that is likely to expand as it seeks to widen the net over ‘gambling operators whom organize remote gambling illegally and target the Republic of Lithuania.’
Network service providers that fail to play by the brand new rules face hefty fines.
Pressure from EU
‘These modifications to legislation have been widely publicized and will be strictly lawfully enforced,’ Virginijus Dauksys, director associated with the GCA, stated. ‘Gaming operators need to be licensed to run in the Republic of Lithuania,’ he added.
Lithuania was one of six member that is EU chastised by the European Commission in 2013 for its failure to regulate online gambling, and the country’s reforms are particularly much an effect of EU pressure.
The brand new regime, which started its doors to certification on January 1st, is similar to that of Belgium in that it requires that an operator must be integrated being a company in Lithuania and have now issued share capital of at least €1.1 million ($1.18 million). Remote gaming licensees must also partner with an existing land-based casino in the united states.
Expansion To Be Tightly Controlled
Lithuania formerly had no measures in destination to legislate for remote gambling, and thus the reforms that are new be seen as progress, but the EU, along with its insistence on free movement of services across borders, is still more likely to disapprove of the restrictiveness of its licensing requirements.
On signing the reforms into legislation last summer, Lithuanian President Dalia GrybauskaitÄ— warned that gambling tasks would not be promoted and gambling expansion would be tightly managed.
Hence, without much scope for marketing or advertising, it are difficult for operators to determine themselves within the market and for gamblers to distinguish between the licensed and markets that are unlicensed.
It also remains to be seen just how many international operators will seek to base their businesses into the country, as needed by the new law.
While the licensing window has admittedly been open just for one week, a GCA spokesperson told TotallyGaming.com on Wednesday that it had up to now received only one application for certification.
Steve Wynn Reportedly Enthusiastic 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 30 years after he left the Garden State, vowing to never get back. (Image: bloomberg.com)
Steve Wynn folded on his Golden Nugget Atlantic City property in 1987 and vowed to never go back to the ‘corrupt and stupid’ East Coast mecca that is gambling. However now one state legislator says the casino billionaire is interested in returning to New Jersey.
Wynn isn’t looking at the struggling resort town he departed from nearly 30 years ago.
Instead, he’s eyeing North Jersey across the Hudson River from Manhattan.
Wynn really wants to be the company that is first build a gambling facility in your community.
Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-District 32) told NJ.com, ‘I have talked to individuals that are many have expressed interest in coming to New Jersey. Mr. Wynn is one of the individuals.’
Politics as typical
Prieto isn’t alone in wishing to bring gambling north and out of this isolated beach town. Their counterpart that is legislative Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-District 3), agrees that allowing resort casinos to work nearer to New York City would create thousands of jobs and produce millions in new revenue for Trenton.
Nevertheless the two Garden State legislators disagree on whom must certanly be permitted your can purchase and manage the North Jersey properties.
Sweeney really wants to mandate that in order for a company to be granted one of this northern New Jersey gambling licenses, the company must currently operate in Atlantic City. Prieto is ready to adhere to that demand for one casino, but not both.
‘We have people that spent hundreds of dollars in Atlantic City,’ Sweeney said. ‘Steve Wynn left New Jersey.’
Assemblyman Ralph Caputo (D-District 28) states Sweeney’s decree is flawed in reasoning. ‘Why would we exclude a person like Steve Wynn? I’d be disappointed if we … excluded individuals of his caliber.’
Steve Wynn the most notable names in the gambling industry, also though his company presently just maintains four properties, two in nevada and two in Macau.
Ending Monopoly
If you have ever participated in a game title of Monopoly, you know how excruciatingly difficult it may be for the overall game to visited a detailed. That is also the full instance for monopolies in real life.
The properties on the original Monopoly board game are predicated on streets in Atlantic City, the town that has held a genuine monopoly on casino gambling into the state since 1976.
It had been 40 years ago that nj-new jersey legalized gambling, but voters thought we would limit gaming to just Atlantic City at that time. Since then, the presssing dilemma of expanding gambling has repeatedly been presented in the state legislature and on ballots.
The Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford is the absolute most most likely location for a northern Jersey gambling facility. Accompanied with a horse racetrack, MetLife Stadium and baseball arena, the $3.5 billion Xanadu Meadowlands retail and entertainment destination ground that is broke 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 in the northern counties of the latest Jersey no longer generally seems to be considered a dream, but the procedure of awakening the market is yet become decided by the state Legislature.