The Bingo Industry’s Code of Conduct for Responsible Gambling

The Bingo Association, which represents 98% of all licensed retail bingo clubs and 38% of all ‘bingo extra’ premises in Great Britain, launched a Bingo Industry Code of Conduct for Responsible Gambling ‘Getting it Right’ in January 2015.

Signing up to the Code of Conduct, is now a condition of membership to the Bingo Association and has been introduced to emphasise the socially responsible practice of members. The new Code of Conduct sets out measures designed to achieve, and often exceed, the conditions set out by the Gambling Commission in the recently amended Licensing Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP).

The Bingo Association position

The Bingo industry has taken a proactive stance on social responsibility. The Bingo Association asks that the Gambling Commission and policy makers continue to recognise that bingo is a safe social pastime and that they will:

1. Take a risk based, proportionate response to future regulation, to avoid handicapping an industry that is putting the foundations in place to reinvent itself and flourish again.
2. Recognise the commitment made to social responsibility by licensed bingo operators through the Bingo Industry Code of Conduct and help this Code to take root.
3. Recognise the commitment made to social responsibility by the licensed bingo industry through its support and facilitation of a research programme into problem gambling behaviours in bingo.
4. Ensure that bingo is not swept up in the unintended consequences of regulatory activity aimed at other sectors.
5. Work with the Bingo industry to map out solutions to future challenges, such as online convergence and 24 hour gambling in bingo premises. Against this regulatory backdrop the industry will continue to collate and share investment progress and demonstrate the impact of duty change with Treasury and policy makers