The Gambling Commission is holding consultations over a 13-week period to provide greater clarity and transparency on how penalties are calculated for legal compliance. The starting point for fines and whether penalties will be assessed against the gross gambling yield (GGY) during the breach will be considered. Financial key event reporting will also be covered, taking into account the increased complexity of mergers and acquisitions and the globalization of gambling.
Kay Roberts, executive director of operations at the Gambling Commission, emphasized the importance of stakeholders expressing their views on the proposed changes as part of the ongoing effort to ensure effective regulation in the UK’s gambling sector.
These consultations are a response to the white paper from the Gambling Act review, which outlined proposals for regulating gambling in the UK. The white paper was based on a government review of the 2005 Gambling Act.
In addition, the Gambling Commission recently launched a confidential reporting service to enable anonymous reporting of criminal and suspicious activity. The launch was prompted by statistics indicating a significant increase in land-based gambling, with the sector growing over 20% in the past year and returning to pre-pandemic levels. Total GGY for licensed remote and land-based gambling operators reached £15.1bn ($19.0bn/€17.5bn) for the 12 months from April 2022 to March 2023, representing a 6.8% year-on-year growth.
GambleAware, a British charity, highlighted online slots as a major concern in their recent statistics. They reported that over a third of their support service contacts in 2022-23 were from individuals experiencing gambling-related harm due to online slots. Internet sports betting accounted for 15.6% of the contacts, while fixed-odds gaming machines in bookmaker shops accounted for 12.8%.
