Gambling Commission: operators are now “getting the message”
The Gambling Commission’s head of policy spoke at the Westminster Media Forum about its recent enforcement actions.
UK.- In a keynote speech at the Westminster Media Forum, head of policy Ian Angus said operators are “getting the message” after the Gambling Commission’s recent spree of high–profile fines. Speaking a few weeks after William Hill received a record £19.2m fine for social responsibility and money laundering failures, Angust said the British regulator had made its expectations clear and won’t relax.
“Where we find operators failing to meet our standards we will continue to take unrelenting action,” he said. “We think the action we are taking makes clear what our expectations are. And at the volume we’re now broadcasting them, we are pretty sure those operators who were still deaf to them a year or two ago, are now getting the message.
“Driving up the standards of gambling operators through our compliance and enforcement work is an important focus and will remain so. But we also want to work with the industry to improve protections for consumers as well as improving the evidence base and our regulation in general.”
Angus’s review of the stats show just how much stricter the Gambling Commission has become in its enforcement actions. He noted that it has issued a whopping £76m in fines in 27 enforcement cases since the start of 2022. That compares to just £1.7m in penalties stemming from three investigations in the 2016/17 financial year.
He explained: “The reason we’ve been forced to escalate our enforcement action like this in recent years is because each failing is not just a failing against our rules, it’s a failing for ordinary people, some of whom have suffered terrible harms as a result.”
Angus reiterated several calls the Gambling Commission made previously, noting that it had “challenged the industry” to work with the technology sector to develop a Single Customer View (SCV). He said he believed the regulators work with the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) on this will “mitigate the risk of serious gambling harms”.
He added that ‘better data, better research and better evidence’ will lead to better regulation. He also stressed the Gambling Commission’s commitment to work with international gambling regulators to ensure that its work does “not stop at the border”.
He said: “Where strong relationships already exist between regulators, we are increasingly seeing the bad practice and bad behaviour of some licensed and unlicensed operators being shared and discussed,” Angus remarked.
“And that helps us look at those operators’ practices and operations in our own jurisdictions. To be clear: No operator should want to be in this position. No operator should want to be the subject of discussion between regulators in different parts of the world.”
Review of gambling legislation
What Angus didn’t say much about is the UK government’s gambling white paper. The government says publication of the white paper following its review of the 2005 Gambling Act is now “imminent.”
Some will take that with a pinch of salt. In March 2022, Chris Philps said the gambling white paper would be published “very soon”. Then, in December, Paul Scully said the paper would be published “in a few weeks”.
However, this time it’s notable that the DCMS Select Committee on gambling regulation postponed an oral evidence session scheduled for yesterday (April 24), possibly because publication of the paper is expected.
