The number of safer gambling messages displayed on the websites of betting operators has more than doubled in just six months since the launch of a Betting and Gaming Council Covid action plan.

The 10-pledge plan was unveiled at the start of the first Covid-19 lockdown in March and set out the standards expected of BGC members during the pandemic.

BGC members re-affirmed their support for the plan at the start of the second lockdown in England last month.

Top of the pledges was a commitment to increase the number of safer gambling messages on websites and directly to customers.

It has now emerged that the number of those messages has increased by more than 100 per cent since the BGC pledges were introduced.

Meanwhile, the number of individual customers receiving safer gambling messages via direct mail has increased by 150 per cent.

And the total number of direct mails which include a safer gambling message has soared from 6 million to over 11 million a month – an increase of 89 per cent.

In addition, the number of direct interventions by operators where a player has been spending more time or money betting than they did before the pandemic has also increased by 25 per cent.

The findings – to be unveiled by BGC chair Brigid Simmonds at the standards body’s AGM on Thursday – are in addition to other measures introduced in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

BGC members agreed to voluntarily remove all TV and radio gaming advertising during the Covid-19 lockdown last spring, and have subsequently agreed that at least 20 per cent of all TV an radio advertising should be safer gambling messages going forward.