In the weeks running up to final publication, I didn’t meet or talk to anyone who expected that the result would show, in effect “no change since the last time”, which was the surprise overall result. With the decline in sales of National Lottery tickets more or less ‘cancelling out’ the growth in participation in internet gaming, probably the most disappointed people were the Editor and journalists of the Daily Mail. I was told by someone with an ‘inside source’ that , predictably, as they expected a massive increase in gambling to be shown, they had planned yet another “Sodom and Gomorrah” banner headline and front-page lead, and lots of follow-up articles on pages 2 and 3, along the lines of all their previous attacks on the industry and the Government’s move towards ‘liberalisation’; it was a pleasure to know they had to scrap all that! The fact that it so rapidly became a ‘non-story’ was exceptionally good news for the industry – Gordon Brown and James Purnell will now not be under media pressure to introduce tough new restrictions – so where we are, happily in my view, is that the industry can ‘draw breath’ and the 2005 Act will get a proper chance to ‘bed down’.

While we’re on the subject of the Prevalence Study, it seems a good opportunity to pay tribute to the outgoing Chairman of the Gambling Commission, Peter Dean. The new Chairman, Brian Pomeroy, moving over from the Lottery, has a hard act to follow.

When I was still in the House and a Shadow Minister, I shared a platform with Peter Dean at conferences, such as BACTA, and I always thought he spoke in a measured and balanced way. In my post-Parliament dealings with him in his role as the Commission’s first Chairman, I have found him unfailingly helpful and courteous. The understated, diplomatic, but firm way in which he handled the Press Conference for the Prevalence Study was an object lesson in how such matters should be conducted.

Other issues continue – contraction of Bingo Clubs due to the smoking ban, and the same ban (which I opposed on libertarian grounds, even as a lifelong non-smoker) will continue to have adverse effects on the licensed trade and the leisure industry generally.

What is, I understand, going to turn out to have been the very last of the contested cases of an application for an old-style 1968 Act casino gaming licence, in one of the old ‘permitted areas’, (even though heard after the new Act was fully in force, by the bizarre interim measures the Government allowed) turned out to be a victory for the applicants, ‘Dusk til Dawn’ in Nottingham. What makes the case interesting is that, although in law what they applied for (and were awarded, against the opposition of lawyers acting for Gala and Stanley) was a gaming licence, the Magistrates imposed conditions of ‘no slot machines’ and said they were awarding the licence because the applicants only wanted to host poker; if the application had been for a full gaming licence without conditions it would have been refused. However, as all old Act licences get automatically translated into new 2005 Act licences, in practice those conditions might be unenforceable now it is a 2005 Act licence. The operators have been quoted as saying they will comply with the conditions anyway. It goes to show that the lengthy delay between the 2005 Act being passed, and finally implemented, and the complexity of the transitional provisions, have produced extraordinary anomalies.

Meanwhile, London Clubs have launched their Code of Conduct to fit with their new parent Harrah’s Code of Commitment, and charitable funding for Help the Aged. When the anti-gambling sections of the media are in full cry, no-one covers the big charitable contributions made by many companies and trade bodies, of this kind.

I have read that some of my former political colleagues on the Tory side (happily, by no means all of them) are suggesting that the Prevalence Study doesn’t go far enough, and that a future Tory Government would be far more hostile to Gambling – whatever happened to the belief in a free market, and support for the business sector – especially one which has been so successful and growing a part of the UK economy in recent years as the leisure industry?! Sometimes I almost despair that the lessons of Margaret Thatcher’s successful rebuilding of the UK have been apparently so quickly forgotten, or abandoned, in an apparent pursuit of a (mythical, to me) ‘middle ground’.

Back to the Prevalence Study. Probably the most expert academic observer of the Gambling industry scene, Professor Peter Collins of Salford University, has bravely predicted that the proportion of UK problem gamblers will remain the same or even decline slightly in the next study, in three years. I hope he’s right, so we can lay to rest some of the scaremongering which has been so ‘prevalent’ and damaging in recent years.

Nick Hawkins is a Barrister specialising in Gambling and Leisure law. In his 13 years in Parliament previously, he held roles in Government and Opposition, including Shadow Solicitor-General and Shadow Sports Minister.

Halliwells LLP is a major full-service UK corporate law firm with substantial offices in the City of London, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield.

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