Public health boss wants crackdown on gambling ads
City of York Council's public health chief Peter Roderick said figures showing more than one in 10 young people in the city had gambled were the "tip of the iceberg".
Mr Roderick's comments follow the publication of his annual report on the health and wellbeing of young people aged between 10 and 19 in the city.
"We need to educate and support young people and get in really early by talking about gambling with them," he said.
Mr Roderick told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "As a council we have some powers over granting gambling licences to premises but we haven't talked about this issue enough and there needs to be a space to call it out.
"We also need to crack down on advertising in the same way we have done with tobacco and we're going to do with fast food."
Tobacco adverts were banned in the UK in 2002.
Mr Roderick's report said gambling was emerging as a real and substantial threat to the physical and mental health of young people.
It found 16% of young people in York had gambled and a quarter of those who did had taken money without permission to pay for it.
Almost 15% had encountered conflicts with friends and family over gambling.
Mr Roderick said the rise in gambling among young people had followed the relaxation of regulations in the 2000s under the then Labour government.
"The government at the time didn't anticipate the advent of the smartphone and that we'd all essentially be able to have a super casino in our pocket," he added.
"The number of gambling adverts you see is really noticeable and that's affecting children. The effects on young people we can measure are the tip of the iceberg."
A Department for Culture, Media & Sport spokesperson said: "We recognise the impact harmful gambling can have on individuals and their families and we are absolutely committed to strengthening protections for those at risk, including children and young people.
"The government has already announced plans to bring in a statutory levy on gambling profits to generate £100m for the research, prevention and treatment of gambling harms.
"There are already a range of robust rules in place on gambling adverts, wherever they appear, but ministers continue to consider the best available evidence in this area to inform effective action as needed."
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