Several thousand Haringey residents likely to be 'high risk' gamblers, council health chief warns

The problem is concentrated in the borough’s east, which has 55 of Haringey’s 63 gambling venues, reports Joe Ives, Local Democracy Reporter

Slot machines inside an adult gaming centre

More than one in 30 Haringey residents are thought to be “high risk” gamblers, a report has found.

The figure was presented to members of Haringey Council’s adults and health scrutiny panel yesterday (Thursday 1st), during a discussion of gambling harms in the borough.

Despite a lot of gambling now taking place online, Will Maimaris, the council’s director of public health, told councillors there remains “a real density” of physical gambling venues in the poorest parts of Haringey.

In fact, the borough has some of the highest densities of gambling premises of anywhere in the country, added Maimaris. At the same time, he admitted there was “no fantastic way of quantifying gambling harm in Haringey”.

The public health chief explained that the local authority’s “best measure” is a survey called the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). This is a widely-used method of assessing gambling harm, which gauges the extent to which gambling is causing negative consequences in a person’s life.

The council found that, according to the PGSI, around 3.5% of Haringey residents are suffering some of the most severe issues related to gambling. The figure means nearly 7,500 people across the borough could be defined as “gamblers who gamble with negative consequences and a possible loss of control”.

The local authority has also been looking at the targeting of poorer communities. The east of Haringey, with 55 gambling premises, has more than eight times the number situated in the generally “more affluent” west of the borough, which has six.

Maimaris said: “There is clear clustering along key high streets in more deprived communities, notably Wood Green High Road, Harringay Green Lanes, and the High Road corridors at White Hart Lane and Bruce Grove.”

In August, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that his Labour government was working to abolish the ‘aim to permit’ rule in existing legislation. It was an announcement that gained broad cross-party support, including in neighbouring Enfield.

The principle, enshrined in the Gambling Act 2005, is seen to have contributed to local authorities having little means of preventing the creation of new gambling venues. In Haringey, it is hoped that the changes will help “give local authorities greater influence over the location and concentration of gambling venues”.

The government has also started awarding local authorities money to address gambling harms, with Haringey Council receiving £60,000 in the 2025/26 financial year. The funding comes from a statutory levy on gambling operators, introduced last April.

Both Maimaris and Joe Garvey, a ‘health in all policies’ project officer at the council, told councillors there are a number of avenues the council is looking to explore to build on its existing work on gambling harms. These include “investigating the value and impact” of appointing a primary care clinical lead for gambling in the borough.

There are also plans for further work with the North London Tackling Gambling Harms Coalition which, alongside Haringey, includes the councils of Barnet, Camden, Enfield and Islington.

The coalition is looking to “undertake community engagement across the five boroughs to better understand residents’ attitudes, perceptions and experiences of gambling-related harm”.

Haringey Council is also “looking to commission” public health charity Gambling Harm UK to provide sessions to the borough’s state schools. These sessions, funded through Westminster’s levy on gambling operators. would come “at zero cost to the council”, Maimaris and Garvey explained.

Speaking to councillors yesterday, Maimaris also found room for optimism, saying he felt “the tide is turning around recognition of the harm that gambling does”.

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