UK: APBGG extends Gambling Commission probe

The All-Party Parliamentary Betting & Gaming Group has invited the industry to submit examples of the Gambling Commission breaching its regulatory powers.

UK.- The All-Party Parliamentary Betting & Gaming Group (APBGG) has extended its inquiry into the Gambling Commission‘s competency as a regulator. It said it had received significant evidence from the gambling industry of serious failings at the Gambling Commission and would now extend its inquiry to December 1.

It has invited licensed operators to provide any evidence of the British gambling regulator having breached its regulatory powers and code of conduct or provided a poor level of service that calls into question its competency as a regulatory agency.

It said its concerns over negligence at the Gambling Commission had been heightened following the collapse of Football Index, and that it was of the view that the regulator “was definitely not as world-beating as it likes to claim”.

The APBGG opened the inquiry last month. It plans to submit a report to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which is responsible for overseeing industry regulators in the UK, and to Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) ongoing review of the 2005 Gambling Act.

Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes has agreed to attend an invited industry audience to respond to the report.

Scott Benton MP, co-chair of the APBGG, said in a statement: “We have been shocked by two things since we launched this investigation, the sheer scale and severity of evidence that has been submitted to us and the abject terror that the industry has of recriminations by the regulator.

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank those who have submitted evidence of what is showing to be numerous examples of often incredibly tortuous, arbitrary and expensive dealings with the UKGC and reiterate our promise of absolute anonymity to any remaining operators or advisors to submit their experiences without any fear of retribution.

“As a Group we stand wholeheartedly behind the British gambling industry’s desire to be well regulated by a competent and fair regulator.”