Lords Committee Urges Near-Total UK Gambling Ad Ban

In a major parliamentary challenge to UK gambling policy, the House of Lords Liaison Committee published its follow-up report on September 17, 2026, titled Gambling Harm—Time for Action: Follow-up report (HL Paper 52).

Building upon the landmark July 2020 inquiry by the Select Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry, the cross-party report calls for a comprehensive, statutory ban on gambling advertising, marketing, and sports sponsorship across Great Britain.

Evaluating an estimated problem gambling population of 1.0 million to 1.5 million adults, the Committee concluded that voluntary industry codes have failed to mitigate harm. The report explicitly directs the government to abandon its policy objective of facilitating growth in the gambling sector, framing market contraction as a positive public health outcome.

“Up to a million and a half people in Britain experience problem gambling and the serious consequences this has on them, their families, and the community,” stated Lord Foster of Bath, member of the former committee and Chair of Peers for Gambling Reform. “A ban on most gambling advertising would reduce gambling and therefore reduce problem gambling… We are clear that this would shrink, rather than grow, the gambling sector and that this would make a positive difference.”

The report revisits the July 2020 work of the Lords select committee on the gambling industry and runs to 175 conclusions and recommendations. Its central claim is simple. A ban “would shrink rather than grow the gambling sector,” the committee wrote, and it’s clear that’s the intended result.

Rolling Advertising Back to 2005

The Committee’s recommendations seek to dismantle the liberalized marketing framework established under the Gambling Act 2005. Prior to 2005, broadcast advertising was restricted strictly to lotteries, bingo, and football pools under the doctrine that gambling should be “tolerated but not stimulated.”

Today, with licensed operators spending over £1.0 billion annually on promotional activities, peers highlighted that Great Britain has become an international outlier compared to jurisdictions like the Netherlands, which has proposed a full ban on gambling ads of its own.

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, the Senior Deputy Speaker who chairs the committee, said the time was right to go back to the subject because the 2020 committee’s “strong recommendations have been largely unaddressed.” The committee’s launch material also cites a Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research estimate that a 10% cut in gambling spend could add £1.25 billion in gross value added and create over 22,000 jobs.

The Fallback List If Ministers Say No

The committee expects resistance, so it wrote a second set of recommendations for a government that won’t accept a full ban, or for a transition period. The first is structural. Advertising rules should be placed on a statutory footing and overseen by the Gambling Commission, replacing today’s mix of Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) codes and voluntary industry measures.

The rest reads like a list of everything the industry spends money on. Operators would be barred from team shirts and “any other part of their kit,” with no gambling ads in or near sports grounds. The report backs a total ban on inducements such as free bets and sign-up bonuses, and a mandatory restriction on serving gambling ads to anyone under 25.

Affiliates and Online Casino in the Frame

Without a full ban, the committee wants the Gambling Commission to run a licensing regime for affiliates, who’d only be allowed to promote licensed operators. It also asks for much tougher advertising limits on higher-risk products, naming “high-speed, continuous play online gaming,” which is where online casino games fall, and for tighter rules on cross-selling between products.

Not everything is in scope. The committee kept the 2020 exemption for on-course advertising at horse and greyhound racing, and it asked the government to assess how risky lottery advertising is before deciding whether the ban should cover it.

The Black Market Argument Didn’t Land

The industry’s main defense against ad restrictions is the black market. The committee heard it and rejected it, saying it “was unconvinced by claims that restrictions on advertising by licensed operators will lead to displacement of customers to the illegal market.” Concerns about illegal operators, it said, must not be a barrier to dealing with harm from the licensed sector.

The Betting and Gaming Council made its case again that same week, claiming around £8m would be staked with illegal operators during the St Leger meeting at Doncaster.

A Government That Has Said No Before

The government has already given its answer once. In evidence to the committee, Baroness Twycross, then the gambling minister, said “we do not have plans to legislate at this time on advertising.” She has since left the brief. Vicky Foxcroft took over the gambling brief as a junior minister on July 22, 2026.

The report also goes after the government’s economic framing. It calls the twin aims of reducing harm and growing the sector “a fundamental tension,” and it’s blunt about which one should go.

The government, the committee says, “should abandon its objective to facilitate the growth of the gambling industry.”