Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I strongly support these amendments regarding the lived experience and to make sure the authority does not become captured by those in the industry. The industry is broad because we are not only dealing with the commercial, as it goes far beyond that.

This goes to the heart of Sinn Féin's approach to this issue. There is a major problem with gambling in this State and the availability of smartphones and apps has increased that. I say that as somebody who is involved in a company that has a lottery licence, as do many groups and charities as well, but there is a difference.

This is the first amendment on Report Stage when we are talking about the authority. I reiterate the point that there is a lot in this Bill that is really good because the current legislation - I do not have it in front of me - dates back, I think, to 1964 or 1957. It is an outdated lottery. If one looks at the legislation that used to be there, for instance, the limits used to be 1 pence and so on. It is unbelievable that it was so outdated.

This is the time not to repeat the mistakes of the past but to get it fixed now. The Minister of State will not want to be the Minister where people have found ways around this. Whatever our views about local sport organisations, charities, cancer groups, etc., being able to fund-raise, there is another element that has found ways around our gambling laws because they are so outdated. For example, the Minister of State mentioned section 74 to me. It is a good and important provision of the Bill, which will allow for the authority to seek a court order to force an organisation like Facebook or a website provider or whatever to close down a gambling activity if it is not regulated or not licensed here, but the provision states "the Authority has reasonable grounds for believing that a person ... is providing a gambling activity in contravention of Chapter 1". Therefore, the first question we have is, what is "a gambling activity"? A gambling activity is defined on page 16 of the Bill as "providing a betting activity, a game or a lottery", which is fair enough. That is fine but now we have to go to what is "a game" or "a lottery". Most of these are skills-based and, therefore, it is a game. A game is defined as being "of skill or chance, or partly of skill and partly of chance, and ... where a participant in the game may, having made a payment, win a prize". That is the problem. I want absolute clarity and I am sure the Minister of State wants absolute clarity that because they do not offer free entries, which is what they do at present, they are able to say that the authority can seek an order but the company concerned is not providing a gambling activity because "gambling activity" is defined as "a game or a lottery" and the Minister of State has defined a game as where payment is required. I cite as an example, and I will not name any others, a website which is all in euro. It is outside the jurisdiction but it is all euro prizes. The top prize is a €500,000 prize pot. The Minister of State could enter that one now. The Minister of State could go for a BMW 320 M Sport or he could get €2,000 cash. That is one of numerous sites that I could put on the record. It does not have a gambling licence because it offers free entry and is not a lottery. It is a game of skill because they ask three simple questions. This originates from a case that was taken in Britain in the 1970s where it was defined that a lottery is not a lottery if a question is asked and the question is sufficiently difficult to rule out some participants. Now these questions are very simple. It also makes the point that it is not a lottery if one offers a free entry route. The point I am making here is that provision in section 74 is really good but it will not be worth the paper it is written on if the definitions of "game" and "lottery" on pages 17 and 18 of the Bill are not tight enough to ensure that having made a payment does not rule out what is really a game and what is really a lottery but, because they offered a free entry route, they can argue legally that they fall outside the definition.

As I said, I could pick up my phone and give the Minister of State another company. There is a villa in Spain and one can get €450,000 or take the villa. They will have half a dozen cars this week. These are multimillion euro operations. As I said, I will not even mention the charities, etc., because I want to focus on this because this the Minister of State needs to get right. The Minister of State needs to look at this. This is happening at the minute. This is happening at a time when we are dealing with other pieces of the legislation which I said I would not mention in this contribution, but this has to be got right. Otherwise, the Minister of State knows what we can do. The GAA can do exactly the same thing with a game of skill and can give a free entry. Nobody does the free entries. These websites have tickets for €100 and there is a free entry. Very few, obviously, some people, do a free entry. The issue is, it is there on the app, with PayPal, Apple Pay, etc. They are paying €100 instead of going through the free entry route with which one has to use a postcard and put the name and address on it. All the terms and conditions of these operations are exactly the same.

I make the point there is no point in dealing with this legislation unless this is watertight. We talk about blocking others coming into the jurisdiction and offering gaming activity. As I said, this company used be located in the jurisdiction. It is now outside the jurisdiction but all its advertising and promotion is done here. Were the Minister of State to tell Facebook that it does not have a licence or is not legal, by the time Facebook came back to him, it would say that the advertisement had now been removed. I will come to this later on because when we look at the powers in terms of social media companies, there are no penalties for the social media companies for continuing to host these type of advertisements. That is something else I would like to discuss.

My main issue here - the Minister of State can give out to me in relation to not being here earlier on but I said that we were ahead of schedule - is I want to get this legislation right. I believe that there is an issue with gambling. I also believe there is an issue, in that we have to support our sectors such as sport. I also recognise that there are ways around our existing legislation, which I believe have not been closed down in this legislation and I do not think anybody in this House wants that.

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