In a wide-ranging speech to the International Association of Gambling Regulators (IAGR), Gambling Commission head Andrew Rhodes led a scathing attack on critics of affordability checks.
Rhodes highlighted the controversy in some sections of the press around the government’s approach to gambling reform, particularly financial risk controls, often called affordability controls.
The measure is widely seen as one of the most controversial in the government’s white paper on gambling and has been the subject of widespread criticism in the media.
The Commission head said misunderstandings around controls resulted from the complexity of the issues involved.
However, he added that others were the result of deliberate misinformation aimed at muddying the waters of debate and torpedoing the implementation of government policy.
The Gambling Commission is currently receiving submissions on how affordability checks should work. This will be part of the new codes in LCCP customer interaction.
The consultation is due to close tomorrow alongside three others. Rhodes said the Commission has so far received 2,100 responses in total.
Rhodes takes stock of the fight against the black market
The CEO of the Gambling Commission also provided an update on regulators’ efforts to stamp out the illegal market. In the past, Rhodes has claimed that the risk of the illegal segment in the UK is overestimated. He repeated this position in the speech.
Although the illegal online market exists in Britain as elsewhere, it is not a major concern and this position has not fundamentally changed, he said. However, this does not mean that there is no illegal market or risk.
Rhodes highlighted recent work. This includes increasing the Commission’s level of engagement with payment providers and financial institutions.
He highlighted the fact that the Commission has worked with Internet service and search providers to remove illegal operators from search results and geoblock their sites. The Commission also worked with a social media company to remove posts promoting unlicensed offerings.
Rhodes also highlighted the need to work with video game providers to prevent access to popular products on black market sites. Furthermore, the CEO said the regulator was engaging with its licensees to prevent their subsidiaries from working with unlicensed sites.
Rhodes highlights 500% increase in coercive measures
Rhodes said this work had a quick effect.
This included a 500% increase in enforcement measures between 2021-22 and 2022-23 and more than doubling the number of disruptions.
The Commission said it was identifying high-traffic sites to ensure consumers could not access them in the UK, whether through hosting or geo-blocking.
So between May and July of this year, Rhodes said four of the top ten illegal domains were restricted. Additionally, the Commission found a 46% reduction in traffic to the largest illegal sites.
But we are not resting there, he added. This month we will take another look at the impact of our disruptive activities. You know as well as I do that so-called phoenixing of illegal sites, whereby a new, similar website is created after the original has been taken down, is a problem and remains so in Britain.
What may have worked one quarter may need to be tweaked the next quarter. And that’s what we’re committed to.
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