A charity which helps people with gambling addiction, including a royal navy veteran who once cooked for royalty, has warned it will soon be forced to start turning people away. Government funding changes have left Gordon Moody unsure of where “the next penny is coming from”.
Gordon Moody, a specialist gambling harms charity which helps around 250 people a year, said it faces losing its core funding by March 2026. As such, the charity expects to begin turning people away from November 2025, because it will be unable to commit to completing its 18-week treatment programmes without guaranteed funding.
The crisis follows a Government overhaul of the gambling treatment system. The charity’s current commissioner, GambleAware, will no longer hand out funds from voluntary industry donations. In its place will be an NHS-run statutory levy, with the health service deciding who runs treatment services as of next year.
Julia Herdman, the charity’s finance director, said: “We’ve got no clarity over what is happening. We know we are losing our funding in March 2026, we have no idea whether we are going to get any more money.”
She added: “We do not know where the next penny is coming from, or when. Because we run an 18-week program, theoretically, when we get to the 25th of November, we may have to say, we cannot take any more people into treatment because we don’t know how we are going to fund them.”
One patient, Geoff Wernham, a 47-year-old veteran who once cooked for royalty during his time in the Royal Navy, said the service had “given [him his] life back.”
“The service was amazing,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been given a life. With gambling, you forget yourself, because you’re putting it all into gambling.”
Shadow Sport and Gambling Minister, Louie French MP, said: “This Labour Government’s decisions have created a funding cliff-edge for gambling harms charities. Unless they urgently continue funding for charities like Gordon Moody, hundreds of people harmed by gambling will be left without the help they desperately need.
“The Government must reject the ideological approach that some are advocating, which would defund excellent charities that previously accepted vital donations from the industry. Punishing charities for taking money under a system created by the Government is unbelievably stupid.”
Speaking to Mr Wernham, Mr French added: “Politicians need to make sure the services people need are available to help them. The government needs to wake up to some of these issues.”
A Government spokesperson said: “This government is fully committed to reducing gambling-related harms and protecting those at risk. The introduction of the statutory levy is a major positive step, providing independent, sustainable funding for help and support that has the greatest impact across the country.
“NHS England, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the appropriate bodies in Scotland and Wales will be responsible for funding decisions on prevention and treatment under the levy, and they will provide further details shortly.
“We are working together to ensure that people continue to get the help they need during this change, so no one misses out on support.”
The statutory levy, introduced in April 2025, is intended to provide long-term, industry-independent funding for research, prevention, and treatment of gambling-related harms. But charities warn that delays in implementation could leave vital services without the resources they need to help those most at risk.
