“Politics is rotten,” “incompetence rewarded,” and an “affordability checks shambles” – those are just some of the reactions to the news that Andrew Rhodes has landed a new role in the industry.
Rhodes, the former Gambling Commission Chief Executive Officer, was this week appointed as a Principal Consultant at Harris Hagan-owned consultancy firm Hawkbridge, and the news of this has evoked some strong reactions, to say the least.
Rhodes was CEO of the Commission for five years, joining during a time of turmoil as the regulator faced scrutiny over its handling of the collapse of Football Index, and subsequently overseeing its remit during the 2020-2023 review of the 2005 Gambling Act.
The response to his appointment has been mixed at best – but is the condemnation fair?
Opinions united … yet divided
Criticism of Rhodes’ new job has come from both sides of the aisle in the gambling reform debate, with different stakeholders clashing on social media despite sharing similar criticisms of the Commission under its former CEO.
James Noyes, a gambling reform advocate who has been at the centre of many industry discussions in the last few months, was one of the figures to speak out about the situation.
His take on the matter focused on a “revolving door” of MPs, regulators and advisors cycling through positions.
“Pretty much everyone agrees that British politics is rotten. And yet in Westminster, a revolving door continues to exist whereby regulators, legislators, businesses and journalists exchange jobs between each other in a self-enriching merry-go-round which has become accepted as normal,” he wrote on X.
“Everyone knows it is happening yet few people speak out against it because if they do, they risk being ostracised from the cosy little club and find that their job options suddenly become limited. And who would be brave enough to do that, when they have mouths to feed?
“And so it goes on. A ex-MP joins a company board, a journalist becomes a lobbyist, a lobbyist becomes a Lord. Gifts and favours exchanged.
“The impact on the parliamentary process is corrosive. Trust in politics continues to fall. And yet the revolving door carries on.”
Noyes’ disapproval continues his recent critiques of the Gambling Commission. Having been an avid proponent of affordability checks in the past, he has performed somewhat of a U-turn – leaving his position on the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group in an act of protest against Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs) being implemented in their current state.
As a representative of the Social Market Foundation (SMF) think tank, Noyes was a vocal advocate of some kind of affordability solution for many years. SMF was also a major proponent of heavier gambling tax increases.
His views on issues like affordability have put him at loggerheads with many in the industry over the past five years. Geoff Banks, owner of the Geoff Banks Online and on-course bookmaker, took aim at Noyes’ career in academia and government advisory roles on X, a similar sentiment shared by Star Sports’ founder Ben Keith.
However, like Noyes, Banks has also been critical of Rhodes’ leadership of the Commission – not an entirely unsurprising conclusion as Banks has been particularly vocal about gambling regulation in recent years, particularly as the 2020-2023 review and the 2025 tax debates got heated.
Writing in a blog post, Banks said: “Andrew Rhodes, the man who spent roughly six years treating ordinary British gamblers like financial suspects who needed to justify their leisure spending to a regulator, has landed on his feet at Harris Hagan.
“One of the most prominent gambling law firms in the country. Knows the square root of zero about gambling.”
Criticism has also come from the Clean Up Gambling pressure group – again, hardly a surprise given how vocal this group has been in calling for much tougher restrictions on bookmakers including stringent affordability checks and advertising bans, among others.
On X, the pressure group criticised Rhodes for never removing a major operator’s licence for failings, while alleging that he had allowed slot ventures to operate “with near impunity” and let gambling firms “keep proceeds of crime, even after serious failings”.
Rhodes is under the pump from all kinds of figures in the industry. Sharp Betting Founder, Chris Fawcett, who is an active figure on X when it comes to horse racing discussions, commented: “Under Andrew Rhodes’ watch at the GC: Online betting turnover down circa 30% in real terms. Illegal betting reached 9% according to Yieldsec. Record fines for operators. Affordability checks shambles. Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) shambles.”
One of Fawcett’s other posts on the matter evoked a reaction from ITV and Sky Sports broadcaster Matt Chapman.
Chapman is yet another critic of FRAs and the Commission, having spoken out against FRAs on TV, pleading with the Commission to revisit them.
Last month, he interviewed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage to discuss the dangers of FRAs being implemented in their current state.
On the news of Rhodes’ new role, he commented: “It just goes from shambles to embarrassing. Literally how do these people exist? Incompetence rewarded.”
Is this mass criticism of Rhodes justified?
It’s fair to say, from the opinions above, that Rhodes has been a divisive figure for the UK gambling industry.
Rhodes built up a reputation as a “tough sheriff” for the sector, as SBC Media’s Editor-at-Large Ted Menmuir put it on iGaming Daily yesterday. It could be argued that what the industry needed was a tough sheriff, however.
Clean Up Gambling has criticised Rhodes for never removing a major operator’s licence. However, while he may have never gone as far as this, the Commission handed out some pretty hefty penalties under his leadership:
- Spreadex paid £1.36m in August 2022 for social responsibility and AML failings.
- That same month, the regulator issued a record penalty of £17m to Entain due to social responsibility and AML failings at both its Ladbrokes and Coral brands.
- This record was broken in March 2023 when William Hill was hit with a £19.2m penalty for failings across the William Hill Online, Mr Green and William Hill retail businesses.
- Betfred was also hit with a £3.25m charge in 2023, with the operator criticised for having insufficient controls in place and poor record keeping, among other failings. The firm was hit with another penalty late last year, amounting to £825,000.
These are just a few of the examples of major penalties over the past few years, with numerous others ranging in the hundreds of thousands and some in the millions.
In 2023 the Commission also oversaw the surrender of licences held by TGP Europe, which operated a huge white label network encompassing a number of brands partnered with Premier League clubs.
Shortly before this occurred, the Commission placed TGP-managed Stake UK under supervision due after a controversial marketing campaign. The operator would later withdraw from the market.
But despite these tough enforcement actions, he has, in the past, overlooked some clear dangers to the industry. Back in 2023, Rhodes claimed that the Commission had managed to get four of the top 10 illegal gambling casinos geoblocked.
However, at the same time, he also said that the risk of the black market is “overstated”.
“I’ve said this in public a number of times – I think the risk is overstated, but I don’t think there is no risk,” he said.
“Talking to a lot of people around the industry, they will actually tell you that within the GB market, the size of the black market is very small.”
The large-scale presence of the UK black market three years on, however, is clear for almost anyone to see – particularly through the realms of social media. The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has cited estimates from H2 Gambling Capital (H2GC), which said that the £17bn illegal gambling market in the UK is forecast to reach £33bn by 2028.
For many in the industry, the above mentioned penalties may come across as examples of over-regulation. There is also the matter of affordability, one of the most complex topics the industry is dealing with right now – though in all fairness to Rhodes, the requirement for an affordability solution was mandated by the government’s Gambling Act review White Paper published in April 2023.
Also, to top things off, the notion of an experienced individual moving from one side of an industry to another is hardly uncommon, whether this be industry to regulator or regulator to advisory, although regulator to industry is admittedly very, very rare.
The experience Rhodes has built up during his five years at the Gambling Commission will undoubtedly have been seen by Hawkbridge as valuable for UK gambling operators – they wouldn’t have hired him otherwise.
His appointment comes as said operators have to navigate a more burdensome tax framework, a new gambling harm treatment system which is already attracting criticism from participants, and the lingering issues of affordability and the black market.
However, it’s also clear that relationships will be a little tense as operators find themselves working with a man who may have put up a barrier or two to them over the past five years.
