Proposed Irish regulations criticised

The proposed new gambling laws for Ireland have been compared to “a bucket full of holes” by an industry critic.

Barry Grant, a project manager at Extern Problem Gambling, went on record with the Irish Examiner to criticise the lack of clarity in the proposed new regulations, which were published last week and cover 170 pages.

Grant has demanded that the Irish government strengthen the bill to bring about tougher controls over gambling.

With other detractors, he criticised the proposals for self-exclusion, lack of detail in the ban on machines in pubs and called for more information about the proposed social impact fund to treat problem gamblers.

Grant said that under the proposals, a gambler would have to have an online account with a particular operator to actually self-exclude which was “the opposite” to what was needed.

He said the inability to self-exclude over the whole market was not “a joined-up system.”