UK

GamCare believes the over £4m it has provisionally been awarded from the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) VCSE Gambling Harms Prevention and Resilience Fund will help the charity ‘reduce the gap between harm and help for thousands’.

The charity will implement two dedicated programmes with the 2026-2028 funding: a community outreach service and specialist support for people who have been affected by someone else’s gambling. Both programmes are expected to be delivered from April 2026, subject to confirmation.

Supported by the prevention strand of the statutory levy on gambling operators, OHID has recently allocated £25.4m to 33 voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations that provide gambling harm support across England.

Victoria Corbishley, Chief Executive Officer of GamCare, commented: “This provisional award, once confirmed, would help us to reduce the gap between harm and help for thousands of people across England.

“Whether someone is strugglin..

Skill On Net has been criticised by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for a paid-for Instagram advertisement involving a stand-up comedian talking about pistachios.

An advert for the white label casino brand Gecko Play showcased the comedian, who was not named, performing a set on stage in which they said: “Gambling is really like eating pistachios, if you get a good pistachio, you want another good one, if you get a bad one, you want a good one even more,” receiving a laugh from the audience.

A GambleAware logo and an 18+ sign were featured at the bottom of the video, next to text which stated, “Gambling can be addictive please play responsibly” and #AD in the bottom right-hand corner.

The ASA stated that two complainants challenged whether the ad encouraged socially irresponsible gambling behaviour.

Skill On Net argued that the similarities made between gambling and pistachios were ‘intended as light-hearted, observational humour regarding the variability and unpredictabi..

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has disclosed the funding allocation it will distribute to local councils across England to support efforts to reduce gambling-related harms.

Booked on 2026–2027 accounts, OHID plans to distribute £12m in dedicated funding to upper-tier local councils in England. Councils have also been informed that OHID has reserved an additional £12m in funding which will be allocated for the 2027–2028 period.

Funding for local councils to reduce gambling harms is fully guaranteed by the New Statutory Levy on gambling licences. Since April 2025, OHID has taken its guardianship, overseeing the prevention and treatment of problem gambling across England.

The direct funding of councils via the statutory levy system underscores a shift to a centralised system led by the NHS, moving away from the previous voluntary framework under GambleAware.

In support of the new system, local councils must complete two mandatory requirements to secure the al..

The UK Government has created the Gambling Levy Transition Fund (GLTF) to assist charities that missed out on funding under the Statutory Levy.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the decision has been made to ensure the continuity of gambling harm prevention and treatment services in England’, as the industry continues to navigate the ‘generational change’ brought about by the transition to a Statutory Levy on operators.

“Tight time frames for commissioning processes and decisions created the risk of a funding gap,” said DCMS.

“This may have put vulnerable service users or beneficiary groups of organisations previously funded under the voluntary system at risk. Recognising this, the GLTF has been rapidly established by DCMS to provide immediate, targeted, time-limited financial support to ensure no such gap exists.”

Although there has been no official confirmation from the government on which organisations have been successful, it is understood that some charities hav..