Gambling Commission

Our commitments to the implementation of the Gambling Act Review White Paper have been progressing in earnest, with three new changes for remote and land-based operators coming into effect from the start of this month. Our Executive Director of Policy and Research, Tim Miller, explains what these changes are in our latest blog post, how they'll gradually be implemented to allow operators to adapt, and what we plan to introduce in the coming months to further ensure fairness and transparency for consumers. To read Tim's blog post, visit our website 💻 https://lnkd.in/ePt3-zTW

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games begin next week and, as the regulator for the National Lottery licence, we're saying 'bonne chance' to all our National Lottery funded ParalympicsGB athletes going for gold over the next few weeks. Best of luck to all - we'll be cheering you on! 🏅 #TNLAthletes | #Paris2024 | Paris 2024 - Comité d'organisation des Jeux Olympiques et Paralympiques de 2024 | Team GB |

Our Chief Executive and Deputy Chief Executive were on the road last week, visiting gambling venues and others as part of our commitment to engagement with those who have an important viewpoint on gambling in Great Britain today 🌍 Andrew Rhodes was in South Wales with Commission colleagues, to speak to representatives at Mecca Bingo, Ffos Las Racecourse and Mumbles Pier. Sarah Gardner visited an Admiral Adult Gaming Centre, the Southern Gambling Service (Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust) and Southampton City Council. Visits like these provide a valuable opportunity for us to meet with management teams, discuss challenges and opportunities both locally and nationally, and understand how the work we do directly impacts businesses and partners. Thank you to staff at venues in both South Wales and Southampton for the warm welcome and insightful conversations 💬

We're delighted to announce that we've been named as a Best Workplace for Women by Great Place To Work UK 🏆 Women at the Commission represent more than half of our total workforce, and make up the majority of our executive team. As an organisation that regulates an industry traditionally dominated by men, we're proud to have this inclusive representation that better reflects the society we serve, and helps bring diversity in perspective and knowledge that makes us a better informed and more well-rounded place to work. To all our colleagues - the experts, innovators and leaders - who've helped us achieve this recognition and continue to make the Commission an official Great Place to Work in so many ways: thank you 👏 Our Deputy Chief Executive, Sarah Gardner, explains in our latest blog post how the importance of all forms of diversity at events we attend is crucial to hearing and understanding the broadest range of views 💻 https://lnkd.in/ezRhivPX #GreatPlaceToWork | #BestWorkplacesForWomen

It was our pleasure to welcome the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority, who visited us in Birmingham last week 🌍 We were delighted to welcome Mr Bashir Are and his team to the UK to discuss common challenges and opportunities for collaboration in an ever-expanding global gambling industry. As part of the visit, we invited the team to visit local betting shops and casinos, to show how operators in Great Britain remain compliant with our regulations. Since the IAGR (International Association of Gaming Regulators) conference in Botswana last year, we’ve been proactive in further strengthening our engagement with emerging African gambling jurisdictions. This meeting was another successful step in sharing our learnings around gambling trends and technologies, the illegal market and how we can better share data to make gambling safer, fairer and crime free for our respective organisations. Huge thanks to Mr Bashir Are, Mr Samuel Rowland and Mr Hassan Faruq for accepting the invitation to join us, and our Policy and Enforcement colleagues Ian Angus, Rab Grewal, Katherine Jackson, Katherine Wilson, Elizabeth Potter and Jamie Wall for the hard work in ensuring our guests took insightful learnings away with them. We hope the trip was both enlightening and productive, and we look forward to seeing the team again in the near future, both at IAGR and GRAF (Gambling Regulators African Forum).

Dr. Rachel Volberg of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is one of the world’s leading experts of gambling and gambling related harms, having been a prominent researcher in the field since 1985. We were therefore delighted to receive her endorsement for our new Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB), and in particular, around the questions regarding gambling related harms. Dr. Volberg said: “The Gambling Commission has engaged in a thoughtful and thorough process to develop new questions to assess the extent of gambling harms in Great Britain. The new questions include harms experienced by gamblers but also, and importantly, harms experienced from someone else’s gambling. We look forward to seeing the results of this new direction in the assessment of gambling harms and anticipate that the data obtained in the new Gambling Survey for Great Britain will be of great interest to gambling scholars around the world.” A thank you to Dr Volberg and her team for continuing to work with us on developing such an important project.    To read the GSGB annual report, and read more about the survey, visit our blog site 💻 https://lnkd.in/eDdjfM2b

One of the reasons we’re so proud to launch the Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) is due to the excellent work our colleagues and partners have done to make the largest survey of its kind as robust, transparent and consistent as possible.  A significant milestone for us came earlier this year after an independent review from Professor Patrick Sturgis of the The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sturgis said: “The new design of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain will significantly enhance the evidence base on patterns and trends in gambling behaviour. With an annual sample size of 20,000 individual interviews across the nations and regions of Great Britain, the survey will provide researchers and policy makers with fine-grained and timely data across a broad range of key indicators. Using a push-to-web mixed mode design and random probability sampling from the Postcode Address File, the survey implements state-of-the-art methodology to a very high standard"    We’ll continue to improve on the feedback of experts like Professor Sturgis to ensure the GSGB builds on its strong foundations.  To learn more about the GSGB and read the first annual report, visit our blog site 💻 https://lnkd.in/eDdjfM2b

We’re delighted to share with you our first ever Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) Annual Report, which has launched today. It’s the biggest survey of its kind in the country, with the most robust, transparent and consistent data collection we’ve ever had from across England, Scotland, and Wales.  Through GSGB we’ll be able to better understand consumer behaviours, as and when they’re happening, giving us the best possible view of how people gamble, their motives and the consequences it has on them as consumers.  Knowing how and why consumers gamble in Great Britain – to the extent GSGB will allow us - gives us the strongest possible foundation to identify trends that’ll enable us to make data-led decisions around future policy and engagement within the sector. As GSGB advances over the coming years, it’ll go a long way to ensuring that gambling remains safer, fairer and crime free in Great Britain, and we can’t wait to share more with you.  Thank you to National Centre for Social Research and University of Glasgow, whose ongoing insight, knowledge, collaboration and expertise has helped us reach this important milestone. To read more about the GSGB, you can read our Director of Research and Statistics, Ben Haden’s blog post on our website 💻 https://lnkd.in/eDdjfM2b

In our latest blog post, our Chief Executive, Andrew Rhodes, talks about our key issues and expectations concerning account withdrawals.   Complaints about withdrawals are proportionately low compared to completed withdrawals across the industry, but it remains the most frequent reason that consumers contact us.   “By improving our understanding of what’s important to consumers, we’ll be better able to direct our resources and future regulatory activity. We’ll continue to support the gambling industry in Britain to better understand where consumer interests lie. In the meantime, it’s imperative that operators review their terms and practices on withdrawals on an ongoing basis, to ensure they’re acting compliantly and are treating their customers fairly.”   To read more about our actions around account withdrawals, go to our blog site 💻 https://lnkd.in/eU62HgZT

From 1 July, all licensees are required, by changes to our Licence Conditions and Code of Practice (LCCP), to submit their regulatory returns on a quarterly basis 📆 In our latest blog post, jason davies, our Data Analytics Manager, talks about how these improvements will synchronise reporting periods for all licensees and make it easier to analyse changes in the market on a much more timely basis. To read about these changes, and what it will mean for licensees, visit our blog site 💻 https://lnkd.in/eMy5c9yk