The U.K.’s National Audit Office (NAO), a parliamentary body responsible for auditing government departments, agencies and public bodies, has concluded that the U.K. Gambling Commission (UKGC) is “unlikely to be fully effective in addressing risks and harms to consumers”.
A report ordered by the House of Commons pinpointed deficiencies in the Commission’s ability to protect consumers, enforce license conditions and measure results of its efforts.
Problem gambling rates in Great Britain had remained constant since 2012, with some 395,000 known have addiction issues and another 1.8 million adults believed to be at risk. NAO said the commission has not explained proof of reducing those figures and in what time frame. The organization also failed to detail how it ascertains who may be vulnerable.
“The Gambling Commission is not fit for purpose and Neil McArthur (its chief executive) should resign in the light of this report,” said Labour MP Carolyn Harris.
Regulators need clear, measurable objectives so their teams and the external stakeholders they work with have a common understanding of what they are aiming to achieve and can judge progress, NAO said. “The commission has translated its statutory objectives and overall aim to make gambling safer into strategic priorities, business plan activities and high‐level outcomes it wants to achieve. However, it has not yet developed measurable success criteria against which to judge progress.”
The audit also indicated the commission did not make full use of its own data to identify problems. Consumers contacted the agency on around 33,000 occasions in the past year, though the Commission did not use this input as part of its research, according to iGamingBusiness.com.
The commission’s effort to govern a changing industry was also challenged. As it is unable to change funding models, it cannot invest in new skills to address emerging risks, such as addictive technologies and crypto-currencies. As a result, the agency’s ability to respond is hampered by a lack of understanding on how changes impact consumers.
NAO cited fixed-odds betting terminals as an example. The commission could not change stake limits on its own, but could place new controls on operators and advise the government that change was needed.
“The risks to gamblers are changing as technologies develop,” said NAO head Gareth Davies. “While the commission has made improvements, gambling regulation lags behind the industry.”
NAO advised the commission to better define its consumer protection goals into objectives that could be tracked and measured; to improve its analytical capacities to make better use of available intelligence; and to develop a better strategy for compelling operators to raise standards.
The license fee model should also be reviewed as to permit a better response to new areas of potential consumer harm, and increase its capability to address this.
Its verdict comes after the government promised to review the 2005 Gambling Act, following successive scandals that have cast doubt on the industry’s commitment to rein in disordered gambling. These include a 56 percent rise in advertising spending between 2014 and 2017, most of it via online and social media channels rather than television.
NAO also pointed to the increase in the proportion of online gambling that happens via mobile phone, up from 23 percent in 2015 to 44 percent in 2018.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the commission said the NAO report “underlines the constraints that our current funding arrangements presents, and we are developing proposals to discuss this with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.”
The regulator pointed to measures it had taken such as imposing stricter age verification and banning gambling on credit cards, but admitted that more needs to be done.
