UK lobby group raises concerns over “debanking” of gamblers and operators

The Gamblers Consumer Forum has raised the matter with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.

UK.- The Gamblers Consumer Forum (GCF), a lobby group with connections to the gambling sector, has written to the UK’s financial watchdog, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), to raise “deep concerns” about how banks are handling gambling transactions and operators.

The GCF says that legal gambling transactions are being identified as suspicious and that both individual gamblers and companies are being “debanked” as a result. Its intervention comes after Bacta, the amusement arcade trade association, this week raised the issue of banks closing gaming operators’ accounts with the UK Treasury Select Committee.

The GCF wrote: “We write on behalf of those in the gambling industry currently experiencing increasing and unjust difficulty when legal transactions relating to gambling go through bank accounts. We have deep concerns relating to regulated and licensed bookmakers having access to bank accounts removed.”

It said that the situation “impacts the millions of ordinary gamblers in the UK who are simply partaking in a legitimate hobby, and one that supports many of Great Britain’s most iconic sporting industries, such as horse racing”.

The GCF has asked to see the FCA’s guidance on how gambling transactions should be regarded by banks. It argued the National Risk Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing categorises the gambling industry as having a “low likelihood of being abused for money laundering purposes”. It also noted that the 2022 National Crime Agency Suspicious Activity report found gaming and leisure to be responsible for just 0.7 per cent of all suspicious activity reports.

“Banking organisations are therefore applying mass exaggeration to what is a clearly defined minute risk in their practice of bank account closures. We would welcome a response on these important and urgent points as soon as possible please.”

GCF controversy

The GCF has itself come in for controversy in recent weeks following a Guardian report on its links to Steven Donoughue, a gambling industry consultant and former secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Betting & Gaming Group.

The group bills itself as the “voice of gamblers” and has campaigned against proposals for new affordability checks in the UK government’s gambling white paper. However, the group is run by Andrew Woodman, a parliamentary assistant to Andrew Bridgen, and Abbie MacGregor, a PhD student and former parliamentary researcher for two MPs.

The company behind it lists Donoughue as a co-owner and was established in May, the same month that Donoughue announced the disbandment of the All-Party Parliamentary Betting & Gaming Group, of which he had been secretary for 15 years.

Andrew Rhodes, the chief executive of the British Gambling Commission, has since published an open letter blasting the “misrepresentation of gambling statistics” by trade bodies, operators, charities, sports venues and media. He did not name any specific bodies, but his criticism seems to have stemmed from the misleading use of statistics on the GCF’s website.