Night-Time Economy Systems Maps
Mapping the night-time economy at a local level to reduce unequal harms
Inequity impacts not considered when granting gambling licences
Source of power:
State
Space of power:
GAMBLING AND ALCOHOL
Description:
The licensing team are required to grant licenses to venues that do not receive objections and cannot reject applications because the local area does not “need” the venue, as this is not a legislative requirement. This process was felt to neglect “stark” data showing these venues may worsen health inequalities and that 16-24-year-olds are "disproportionately affected" by gambling and alcohol when they gain access to these. Residents have reported being exposed to gambling from a young age, through seeing gambling machines at pub meals and social media advertisements. It was noted that gambling premises are "more prevalent" in areas of deprivation, which licensing does not consider.
Quotes from participants:
~ " if we have an application in and we don’t get any objections… we can’t say ‘oh, we don’t want another one’, need isn’t a requirement of the legislation."
~ "… the data’s quite stark... if it’s a mechanism for such a stark difference in the health inequalities we’ve got in the city, we probably just need to look at that..."
~ "... a lot of them were saying from a fairly young age, going out for family meals, there’s [gambling] machines... and again things on social media..."