UK gambling reform advocate backs calls to pause financial risk checks
A senior advisor at the SMF warns that affordability checks are not currently as frictionless and proportionate as was originally intended.
UK.- Dr James Noyes, a leading voice in gambling reform, has urged the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to think again on the planned rollout of financial risk checks. He has written to DCMS Secretary Lisa Nandy expressing concerns about the transparency and effectiveness of the Gambling Commission’s pilot scheme.
Noyes is a senior advisor at Social Market Foundation (SMF), one of the think tanks that proposed the recent British gambling tax rise. He was once an advocate of affordability checks but argues that the current approach risks straying from the original vision of “frictionless” and proportionate checks, as outlined in the April 2023 Gambling White Paper.
“Despite the White Paper’s claim that financial risk checks would be frictionless, recent reports suggest that the opposite is the case,” he wrote, citing “increasing reports that the pilot scheme has involved inconsistent data, unclear outcomes and unnecessary friction.”
He noted that there has been no update on the financial risk assessment pilot, or its evaluation, since almost a year ago in May 2025. Meanwhile, industry feedback has raised issues with different credit reference agencies returning different results for the same customer and problems with data being insufficient to properly assess risk.
The British Horseracing Association raised similar concerns in its recent open letter opposing financial risk checks. Joining The Sun’s Save Our Bets campaign, it also highlighted public opposition to the checks.
The Gambling Commission began testing “light‑touch” vulnerability checks in August 2024, initially for players depositing £500 or more within 30 days. After six months, the threshold was reduced to £150 in February 2025.
In Westminster, opinions remain split. DCMS and Labour figures argue thatlive testing is necessary, while critics from across parties see the scheme as an excessive intrusion into personal finances. They contend that regulators should instead focus on targeted interventions for those at greatest risk of harm.
Noyes wrote: “While there was a practical benefit to establishing a standardised threshold at which checks would be triggered, my 2021 report argued that such a threshold should not automatically equate to a limit on monthly spend. Furthermore, we argued that any threshold should be applied to net losses rather than total stakes – meaning that the actual figure would be significantly higher than the vast majority of gamblers spend.”
