Capital Investigation: Gambling Addiction
22 September 2015, 06:00 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50
62% of people we spoke to in Birmingham say there should be better restrictions on betting adverts
A Birmingham man who's recovering from gambling addiction has EXCLUSIVELY told Capital he was bombarded by gaming emails and Facebook messages
26 year old Ryan Bloomfield told us it's been detrimental to his life and his family. He has a newborn son and doesn't want to end up ruining his child's life as well as his own.
Hear his full story:
He's one of the youngest people to get help from gambling addiction advice service at Aquarius in Birmingham.
Lawrence is one of the advisors there, a recovered addict himself, who's managed not to gamble for the past three and a half years. He told us the government needs to do more as he believes it's just as serious as drug and alcohol addiction.
Facebook told Capital they have an age restriction in place and allow people to hide certain adverts they don't want to see, which other sites don't do.
We've spoken the Advertising Standards Authority who tell us rules on gambling adverts are tough enough.
It's exclusively revealed new figures to us showing less than 4% of complaints about gaming ads were formally investigated in the last 3 years.
Just 84 adverts for gambling products and services have been banned since 2012 despite 2,290 complaints.
TV gambling ads that offer "free money" if they sign up with bookmakers online will soon be banned under new laws.
From the 1st of October William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral and Paddy Power won't be running the adverts, with the rest of the industry expected to follow suit.
