Gambling, Poverty, and Place

Is it fair that some communities experience disproportionately high levels of gambling harm?

Is it fair that gambling premises are concentrated in some of our most disadvantaged communities?

What could our high streets and communities look like if we created healthier environments instead?

Join us at our Roundtable to contribute your expertise and learn from policymakers and practitioners, researchers, community voices, and those with lived experience of gambling harm.

Together we will discuss how to create a template for healthy, thriving neighbourhoods that meet the needs of their communities, especially the most disadvantaged.

This event will explore the relationship between gambling, poverty, and place, examining how gambling shapes the environments in which people live, work, learn and socialise.

In the context of Andy Burnham’s commitment to tackling ‘hollowed out high streets’ with their proliferation of vape and betting shops, the proposed scrapping of the ‘Aim to Permit’ rule, and the subsequent warning from the gambling industry about job losses and reduced footfall to our shopping streets, this event will shine a spotlight on our communities.

Gambling harm is not experienced equally – the concentration of gambling premises in disadvantaged communities raises important questions about the relationship between our commercial environments, socioeconomic disadvantage, and health.

At this Roundtable, we will ask the questions: What do our most disadvantaged communities need to thrive? If gambling premises decline, what replaces them? What forms of employment, local investment, and community infrastructure should take their place? We are creating a space for critical thinking, shared learning, and collective action. We will bring together stakeholders from across public health, licensing, planning, placemaking, community development, the third sector, and people with lived experience to explore what role gambling plays in our communities.

Our previous Roundtable event in May 2026 ‘A Childhood Free from Gambling Advertising’ explored how gambling advertising and promotion is increasingly embedded across public spaces, sport, media, gaming, and online environments. Critically, physical gambling premises were determined as helping shape the character of our high streets.

In August 2026, Andy Burnham’s new administration set out guidance to give people a say in what happens to their high streets, handing more power to local communities and councils. High streets in our most deprived areas have a higher concentration of health harming commercial activity. What role does planning, licensing, local government, and wider policy play in responding to this?

The gambling industry has argued that its high street presence provides jobs, supports local economies, and contributes to community life. If gambling premises were to decline, however, rather than focusing on what is lost, what could communities gain?

There is an opportunity now to think differently about what our high streets could look like if we move away from products, premises, and industries that harm our health. It is an opportunity to work together to create healthier environments for people in our most disadvantaged communities – especially for our children and young people.

This event aims to:

· Spotlight the relationship between gambling, poverty, and place, including the concentration of gambling premises and gambling harm in disadvantaged communities

· Explore how we can revitalise our high streets and move away from health harming commodities

· Understand the challenges around planning, licensing, and regulation, and the role different institutions can play in shaping healthier commercial environments

· Explore what healthier, more diverse high streets could look like, including what might replace gambling premises and other health harming commercial activities

· Bring together community and third sector organisations, policymakers and practitioners, and people with lived experience to identify practical levers for change

The Scotland Reducing Gambling Harm programme (ScotRGH), hosted by The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE), is a critical strategic partner in gambling harms prevention work across Scotland, helping to identify opportunities to influence policy and practice around reducing gambling harm. We continue to facilitate connection across organisations in Scotland, helping others to embed learning into their own work.

If you would like to get in touch with the ScotRGH team at the ALLIANCE to discuss any aspect of the event, please contact us at: gamblingharm@alliance-scotland.org.uk.