Last night, all parties in the Dáil passed a Sinn Féin amendment to the Gaming and Lotteries Bill.

Bingo players protested outside the Dáil this week saying legislation being considered by the government would put the halls at risk.

A leading gambling charity has called on the government to scrap the amount of time it takes for gambling companies to check a user’s age.

The Government has approved a new maximum stake of €5 for gambling machines.

257 people were treated in the health service last year, with the figures likely to be matched this year.

THE multibillion-euro betting, gaming, and gambling industries in Ireland are regulated by arcane laws, principally the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act and the Betting Act of 1931.

William Hill plans to cut about a third of its betting shops and jobs in the UK after the British government slashed the maximum stake permitted on fixed-odds terminals, dubbed the “crack cocaine” of gambling by their critics.

Paddy Power-Betfair has called for tighter global regulations for the gambling industry as online betting becomes more prevalent.

The study found that buying lottery tickets or scratch cards was the most common form of gambling.

On Christmas Eve, two emails arrived from paddypower.com. The timing was pretty awful — it would be true to say that the emails were a profound source of irritation, writes Paul Rouse

There are calls for the Government to establish a regulatory body to protect people from the dangers of gambling.

A national survey to determine the level of problem gambling and gambling addiction is urgently needed, say mental health professionals and representatives from Gambling Aware.

Junior justice minister David Stanton has pledged that the Government is determined to regulate gambling, including plans to restrict advertising in the sector.