Top NHS clinicians call for ‘addiction levy’ on gambling industry

Call for new independent health board to be created, funded by polluter pays' principle

The gambling industry should pay a new multimillion-pound statutory addiction levy" to fund the prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm, the most senior NHS clinicians treating gambling addiction have said.

Prof Henrietta Bowden-Jones, the director of the National Problem Gambling Clinic, and Dr Matt Gaskell, clinical lead for the NHS Northern Gambling Service, are calling for a new independent health board to be created to tackle gambling addition.