NHS Chief Executive Urges UK Lawmakers to Act Against Rising Youth Addiction to Crypto Trading
Summary:
Amanda Pritchard, the Chief Executive of NHS, urges British legislators to act against young people's growing addiction to crypto trading. Addressing the rise in gambling addictions, she highlighted the need for societal interventions rather than the NHS acting as an expensive recourse. Her comments come as the UK Treasury rejects proposals to regulate crypto retail trading like gambling in July 2023. The problems stemming from highly leveraged bets offered by decentralized crypto exchanges and the surge in online crypto gambling platforms further exemplify the issues highlighted.
Amanda Pritchard, the Chief Executive of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), urges British legislators to intervene and prevent youngsters from becoming crypto trading addicts. While addressing the ConfedExpo of NHS managers held in Manchester on June 12, she mentioned that the NHS inaugurated its 15th specialized clinic for treating gambling addiction earlier in the year in response to an escalating societal requirement.
Pritchard questioned the societal willingness to continuously tackle fallout from addiction while the techniques used to trap people increasingly evolve. She commented that there are increasingly more chances for youngsters to become addicted to betting, including unplanned pathways like the unregulated cryptocurrency markets. She said, during her visit to the national clinic treating gambling problems earlier this year, she learned about these issues first-hand.
The Times documented that Pritchard pointed out how addictive tendencies drive people to invest their personal money in ventures with no fixed value, resulting in the NHS handling the aftermath — this mounting problem could place more demands on the health service.
She also challenged her audience to think about how we should use the finite resources of the NHS. Pritchard questioned whether we should opt to resolve the issues from their root or should the NHS be an expensive safety net.
The UK government, under King Charles, introduced laws around June in the previous year to bring crypto under the same set of rules as other financial services. The UK Treasury rejected a May proposal to treat crypto retail trading like gambling in July 2023, intending to rather regulate it as a financial service.
The Economic Secretary, Bim Afolami announced this April that more laws were forthcoming which would for the first time put certain activities like operating an exchange, safeguarding customer's assets and others within the regulator's purview.
Many participants in the crypto world may be attracted to high-risk tokens in anticipation of huge profits. Memecoins are witnessing a resurgence in popularity, despite many claiming to have zero underlying value.
Decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges are enabling users to place heavily leveraged bets on the price movements of tokens, often resulting in huge liquidations when the wager goes south. The online, always-available and decentralized nature of cryptocurrency has driven an increase in crypto gambling platforms.
One such platform, Polymarket, achieved a locked-in value of nearly $29 million, as reported by DefiLlama. This platform offers bets on multiple events including sports and election results in addition to unique bets like whether Elon Musk will prohibit Apple devices at his companies.
Australia introduced laws prohibiting the use of cryptocurrency and credit cards on online gambling platforms on June 11. This brings parity between the rules for online and offline gambling platforms.
Published At
6/13/2024 5:24:06 AM
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