SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
It’s been a long year for the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), marked by a variety of regulatory implementations and a deepened focus on fostering better support for operators. However, work is just picking up pace, with 2024 laying the foundations of what will be a more mature and refined UK market in the coming years.
This was stated by UKGC’s Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes at the third annual briefing for industry CEOs and senior leaders, which according to the regulatory boss was represented by over 85% of the UK’s market GGY in attendance.
Gambling is on a completely different trajectory compared to the last few years, Rhodes said. The industry has taken a turn for the better, seeing far fewer instances of ineffective intervention and poor compliance adherence.
UK Gambling requires Deep Dive of sub-sector and operators ties
“Let’s be clear – this is a very different situation we find ourselves in,” Rhodes added.
To help operators navigate through this situation, earlier this year in collaboration with the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC), the UKGC launched a voluntary code of conduct addressing the frictions often seen in consumer protection.
Incorporated in that code was the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) guidance, with the latest 3.4.3 iteration of it still being adapted to by operators.
As a result of the latest set of regulatory guidance, consumer protection assessment outcomes have improved throughout 2024. According to Rhodes, only 42% of those assessments came back with ‘Good/Satisfactory’ results between April and June this year.
Data from July to September however has brought that number up to 75%, with just 25% constituting significant failings – with the general outlook being that this will soon improve further.
The UKGC’s shift in assessment approach now includes a deeper analysis divided by sectors, sub-sectors and operator tiers, which will result in a change of the proportion of operators with positive outcomes. This approach will provide a clearer picture of the gambling landscape in the UK and make it easier to identify the “outliers” in compliance.
“Any operator of any real size and scale now who does not have well-developed algorithms, policies, procedures, interactions and interventions in place is increasingly an outlier and this will become more obvious as the industry continues to make developments in this area,” Rhodes commented.
Another part where the UKGC will commit to making improvements is solving the “complicated issues” deriving from the numerous mergers and acquisitions taking place in the sector, which then – despite not deliberate – often lead to marketing mishaps caused by a complicated tech stack where advertisements reach even those who are considered vulnerable.
Going back to the first meeting of its kind in 2022, Rhodes added: “I said then… [that] we would enter a much more complicated phase of regulation, where we would instead be dealing with more nuanced and more complicated issues, with less obvious solutions. This is where I think we are now.”
Transparency matters
When the UKGC published its 2024-2027 Corporate Strategy in April, a vow was made towards shareholders to work with better quality evidence that would improve the public’s engagement with gambling – in line with the Gambling Review White Paper.
A key focus of the strategy over the next three years will be the use if data ad analytic for more effective gambling regulation, enhanced core functionality, evidence-based licencing requirements, and efficient National Lottery regulation.
There will also be an increased commitment to providing both operators and customers with more transparency about the sector’s developments and role in society.
Commercial Transparency is Needed to Disrupt Black Market Actors
The address to industry stakeholders continued with a warning on the need for greater collaborative efforts and commercial due diligence to disrupt the black market.
The Commission leads international efforts in combating illegal gambling activities as “Since the start of April this year, the team has issued over 770 cease-and-desist and disruption notices, including 262 cease-and-desist notices to operators and 205 to advertisers.”
Rhodes notes a “strong start in its approach” but emphasised that enforcement requires greater market insights to support ongoing research into understanding the true scale of illegal gambling, targeting the UK and other regulated markets.
Commercial transparency is highlighted as a key mechanism to protect regulated markets. Rhodes calls on licensed operators to conduct due diligence to ensure suppliers are not supporting illegal activity. The Commission will be strengthened by enforcement efforts aimed at enhancing trust through better compliance, transparency, and communication.
“I said to you last year that I wanted to encourage you to use your commercial influence with any partner or supplier to ensure they were taking all the relevant steps to verify they were not supporting illegal activity in Great Britain. Today, I am going one step further and strongly suggest you all undertake due diligence to ensure none of your suppliers are directly or indirectly engaged in supporting unlicensed activity in this market.”
The Commission’s strategy to combat illegal gambling focuses on causing as much upstream disruption as possible. This includes targeting internet service providers (ISPs), payment providers, search engines, software suppliers, and more.
Improving collaboration
In order to facilitate a constructive dialogue with operators to ensure that this year’s changes are being adequately accommodated, the Commission ran a pilot programme in February where a dedicated email and a phone line was set up to respond to direct enquiries.
From just eight participating operators at the start, Rhodes pointed out that the pilot has grown to 500 operators in October – a 22% of all licensed companies in the UK.
Results have shown that the pilot has most likely found its place in the industry and will continue to be refined in the years to come, with Rhodes citing 95% operator approval rates for the service provided.
GSGB sets a new Gold Standard
One of Rhodes’ final remarks to shareholders highlighted that tackling a more complex environment requires more complex solutions, and the time to leave out-of-date standards behind has come.
This is what the UKGC has shown us with its actions this year on more than one occasion – the biggest example of which was the replacement of the Health Survey with the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB).
“Let’s be clear – the Health Survey was the ‘gold standard’ and it worked well for a long time, but it had its flaws. It was conducted differently in each country of the UK and was relatively infrequent with limited questions about gambling.”
The redesigned survey forms part of the Gambling Commission’s new operating structure monitoring UK gambling prevalence and activities under a new methodology and approach to data collection.
“The GSGB is a big step forward: the largest Survey of its kind in the world, we are now confident that we have an independently recognised, robust methodology that will help us to track trends in gambling behaviour in the years to come.”
