In a letter to the DHSC, MPs called on the Government to review the Gambling Act.

The Committee's letter follows an evidence session on 2 April and a meeting with the organisation Gambling with Lives on 22 April. 

The letter cites serious gambling related harms, including 117 to 496 gambling-related suicides every year in England. 

It calls for a review of gambling, advertising, promotion and sponsorship. This includes limiting pre-watershed advertising and strengthening the rules on gambling sponsorship of sports teams and sporting events, and on the content of adverts, to ensure that they do not contain elements designed to appeal to children and young people. 

The letter also asks how the Government's public health and preventative approach to gambling-related harms will align with the 2023 National Suicide Prevention Strategy, which identified gambling as one of six ‘factors linked to suicide at a population level'. 

It calls on the Government to make clear which body will be responsible for commissioning specialist gambling treatment following NHSE abolition and asks the DHSC to set out how it will monitor the implementation of NICE guidelines recommending primary care clinicians ask patients about their gambling habits.

The MPs also express concern over the concentration of land-based gambling establishments in areas of high deprivation and difficulties some local authorities have had in challenging planning applications due to unequal resources.

They propose making local authorities' directors of public health responsible for planning licensing applications for gambling establishments. 

The Committee recommends the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities  develops and launches a public information campaign to better inform the public about the risks involved in gambling, including gambling-related suicides, with specific communications targeted at people who game, because of the risks from gambling-related content in gaming.