To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport what estimate she has made of the (a) number and (b) proportion of problem gamblers who gamble largely online; and what assessment she has made of the effect of the implementation of the Gambling Act 2005 on those figures. (98339)

None. The remote gambling market was too small to be statistically significant when the first UK gambling prevalence study was conducted in 1999.

The Gambling Commission is currently conducting a new prevalence study and will report in September 2007.

Recent research by RSe Consulting, commissioned by my Department, has found that approximately 900,000 people in the UK regularly gamble by remote means. My Department’s own Taking Part survey suggests that nearly 5 per cent. of the population (in England) gambled online last year.