High stakes: how much sway does gambling lobby have in Westminster?

The Conservative Party has suspended an MP accused of offering to lobby on behalf of the gambling industry and leak confidential files in return for up to £4,000 a month.

Scott Benton, the Tory MP for Blackpool South, was secretly filmed by reporters for The Times who posed as a fake investment fund with interests in the betting industry. Benton reportedly told them that he could “call in favours” from colleagues and obtain a copy of a long-anticipated white paper on gambling reform that is expected to be published after the Easter recess.

The case has renewed focus on the issue of lobbying and gifts for influence in Westminster by the gambling industry. MPs are banned from acting as paid lobbyists and also cannot accept money to raise issues in Parliament on behalf of clients. Betting companies have reportedly spent more than £180,000 on corporate hospitality for dozens of MPs since 2021, however, as lawmakers consider moves to tackle problem gambling.

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What did the papers say?

A spokesperson for Tory chief whip Simon Hart announced yesterday that Benton had been suspended from the party while an investigation was “ongoing”, after the MP referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. In a statement, Benton – who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for betting and gaming – said that he had been “concerned that what was being asked of me was not within parliamentary rules” and had not pursued the role as an “expert adviser” to the investment fund.

The actions discussed by the MP with the undercover reporters “would amount to a breach of the longstanding rules prohibiting ‘paid advocacy’”, said The Times, “as well as flout the new restriction on providing parliamentary advice that came into effect several days before the meeting”.

According to the paper, the investigation was triggered by “allegations from senior political sources that, despite a string of lobbying scandals, MPs were still willing to break the rules by doing favours for companies in return for financial rewards”.

The expose came just a week after campaign group Led by Donkeys published videos of Matt Hancock and other MPs discussing fees for fake jobs.

Similar scandals in recent years have also highlighted the sometimes murky relationship between those in power and the gambling lobby. Put simply, Westminster is “addicted to gambling”, said Byline Times.

In the second half of 2021, “32 MPs from both benches accepted ‘VIP hospitality’ and other benefits offered by the industry”, the news site reported. Six were members of the betting and gaming APPG. Members of these informal cross-party groups are allowed to accept gifts – as long as they are declared – but fears remain that “this set-up gives privileged access and influence to certain people and bodies outside formal structures of power”.

In January, a newly launched database that lists payments to politicians and associated bodies across Westminster showed that over the course of this parliament, Conservative and Labour MPs had declared £167,340 in donations or gifts from gambling firms and related businesses. The Westminster Accounts tool, a joint venture by Tortoise Media and Sky News, also showed that MPs had declared earnings from jobs in the gambling industry totalling nearly £110,000.

Benton has pushed for a large casino licence in his constituency of Blackpool, and in 2021 urged colleagues to drop “preconceived ideas” about the casino industry and gambling addiction. That night, said Tortoise, he attended the Euro semi-final match at Wembley “courtesy of betting group Entain – a freebie worth £3,457”.

That sum was “dwarfed” by the £51,740 declared by Benton’s fellow Tory MP Laurence Robertson for earnings from a second job with the Betting and Games Council (BGC), while working as a parliamentary adviser on safer gambling. Robertson also declared almost £15,000 in gifts and hospitality.

In an article for Politics Home at the start of this year, Labour MP John Spellar described the betting and gaming industry as “a Great British success story” that had helped grow the economy. Tightening regulations would put that at risk, he argued, but “nowhere in the article was it mentioned” that Spellar had received £3,670 worth of tickets from Power Leisure Bookmakers and the BGC since June 2021, said Tortoise.

A 2021 YouGov poll found that 76% of the public opposed influence over politicians by the gambling industry.

What next?

The Sun reported yesterday that leaked cabinet documents “confirm plans to force betting firms to pay a new legal tax to fund help for problem gamblers”. The crackdown was also said to include plans to ban under-25s from betting more than £2 per spin online.

Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer is expected to publish the Gambling White Paper after the Easter break and will “ram as much as it through without creating a new law”, according to the paper.

The latest Public Health England report on gambling estimated that 0.5% of the population (approximately 246,000 people) were problem gamblers, and that 3.8% (2.2m people) were “at-risk” gamblers.

Latest figures from the APPG for gambling related harm put the total lost to online gambling since the last general election at almost £18.5bn.