What's happening with the gambling review - and does it matter?

No matter what is contained in the upcoming gambling review whitepaper (of which more below), it is time for the industry to think creatively about how to meet the player protection challenge. It won’t go away anytime soon. Fortunately, there are technology-based solutions out there that provide protection for those that need it, whilst allowing those that can afford to stake as they like. We just have to adopt them.

The long-awaited recommendations of the UK government’s gambling review are imminent. Or are they? It is now over 2 years since the process of reforming the 2005 Gambling Act got underway, and whilst an almost infinite number of kites have been flown, we are no nearer knowing precisely what will be contained in the (allegedly) soon-to-be-published whitepaper.

As might be expected in this situation, as decision-time gets closer, each ‘side’ in this debate becomes increasingly noisy. 

On the one hand, those keen for the Government to do as much as possible to combat problem gambling, such as Iain Duncan-Smith, promise to ‘declare war’ with the Government if measures previously proposed are watered down. 

Meanwhile, the industry protests that those same proposals may lead to the death of horse racing, represent an unconscionable intrusion on customer privacy and freedoms, and could be a huge blow for a key UK industry employing thousands of people. 

Either way, the tone of the conversation suggests there is one thing that both sides agree on: somebody will ‘win’, and somebody will ‘lose’.

We disagree. 

Why protecting consumers doesn’t mean forfeiting revenue

There are a number of underlying assumptions behind a lot of this debate. Many of them are at best questionable.

First among these is the idea that nobody is willing to share their financial information in order to bet. We simply do not believe this is true. In 2022, people willingly share financial data to buy a house, rent an apartment, buy more competitive insurance o