The UK Gambling Commission has released its first National Strategic Assessment focuses on inherent risks to problem gamblers and highlighting progress already made to make gambling safer for consumers.
“We will use our National Strategic Assessment as the foundation for prioritizing our work over the coming months and years,” said UKGC Chief Executive Neil McArthur in a press statement. “We look forward to working with the government on the forthcoming review of the Gambling Act and alongside that work we will be working hard to address the issues that we have identified in our Strategic Assessment.
“We have demonstrated that we are willing and able to respond quickly to emerging issues and risks and that we will use the full range of our powers to protect consumers,” McArthur said. “We have made considerable progress in many areas to make gambling safer – but we want to go further and faster.”
The assessment was released with the regulator’s annual Compliance and Enforcement Report. That report features the findings of casework against license holders and detailing where the industry needs to raise standards.
“Holding an operating license or a personal license is a privilege, not a right, and we expect our licensees to protect consumers from harm and treat them fairly,” McArthur said. “Our latest report shows that where licensees fail to meet the standards we expect, we will take tough action, including the suspension and revocation of licenses. It also charts how we are shifting our focus towards personal management license holders – those in boardrooms and senior positions need to live up to their responsibilities and we will continue to hold people to account for failings they knew, or ought to have known, about.
According to an analysis by SBC News, the report sets out how over the last financial year the Commission’s work has included:
- Commencing reviews on 49 people who hold personal licenses to operate gambling businesses
- Suspending five operating licenses
- Revoking 11 operating licenses
- Issuing 12 financial penalty packages of regulatory settlements – totaling over £30 million.
- Carrying out 234 security audits and 33 website reviews
- Conducting 350 compliance assessments of land-based and online operators
- Dealing with 630 reports of suspicious betting activity, sports rules breaches and misuse of inside information
- Generating over 3,000 intelligence reports
Further, the commission issued a warning to online operators, as well as land-based operations, to ensure they follow safe gambling procedures while parts of the UK are again under lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It is vital that all operators play their part in keeping their customers safe and we will be continuing to conduct our compliance assessments during this month-long lockdown,” McArthur said in a separate statement.
The commission also said that licensees “do not know enough about their customers” and affordability checks continue to be lacking for many operators despite the regulator pointing out a need to focus on this area.
Meanwhile, two UK members of Parliament are being criticized for taking advisory positions with two gambling entities ahead of a planned review of the country’s 2005 Gambling Act.
The MPs have taken jobs to advise gambling companies on “responsible gambling and customer service.”
According to a report in The Guardian newspaper, Laurence Robertson, representing agreed to a consulting job with the trade group Betting and Gaming Council as a parliamentary adviser on sport and safer gambling initiatives.
Robertson told the paper he would not advocate for the betting industry nor would he make submissions to the gambling review on behalf of the gaming group.
In the second instance, Philip Davies, representing Shipley, was hired as a consultant for GVC Holdings to advise on responsible gambling initiatives and customer service standards.
The two positions have attracted notice as a review of the gambling act is being pushed by Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a focus on protecting children from gambling harm. Davies and Robertson are both members of the Conservative Party.
GVC announced that Davies no longer works for the company. Though GVC said the company benefitted from his services, it was decided to end the relationship when the company underwent a recent leadership change.
“As such, he has useful insight and perspective to offer on a range of industry issues including those that relate to safer gambling,” a spokesperson for GVC told the paper. “However, following the recent management change at GVC, we decided it was a natural time to bring this arrangement to an end.”
The Betting and Gaming Council said Robertson offered advice on safer gambling and sport and that their work with Robertson was in line with the strict protocols governing MPs.
Robertson said: “I have, of course, had registered interests in betting and horse racing for over 20 years and have always, and continue, to observe the strict parliamentary rules on such matters,” Robertson told The Guardian. “Paid advocacy is, of course, rightly prohibited in parliament and my contract with the BGC rules out such practices anyway.”
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the UK Gambling Commission have both said that the planned review of the Gambling Act will lead to reforms focusing on consumer protections, operator compliance duties, betting advertising, affordability and enhancing safer gambling standards.
