UK MP calls for online gambling inside casinos

Southend MP James Duddridge has called for land based casinos in the UK to be allowed to offer online gambling inside their venues. The conservative MP who is sitting on the parliamentary panel that is scrutinizing the latest gambling bill passing through the House of Commons said, “It would be much better to allow casinos to have gambling online within their own premises, that has greater protection for problem gamblers, the current position is ludicrous.”

The MP for Rochford & Southend made his comments following the regeneration of two major casinos in his borrough, the Genting Club employs 170 and the soon to be completed Grosvenor casino at the Park Inn Palace Hotel, which will be completed in the summer of 2014.

Mr Duddridge, who also praised the Genting Club and the Rendezvous Casino in the Kursaal for encouraging responsible gambling, said: “It is ironic games cannot be played online inside, even if one takes in one’s own iPad or iPhone.

In the House of Commons, he said three per cent of the UK’s 142 casinos were in his constituency, and called Southend the “epicentre of bricks and mortar casinos”.