Some of the largest and most powerful gambling regulatory bodies in the industry have recently been brought together by the ICE World Regulatory Briefing.
Mr Andrew Rhodes, the CEO of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), has also participated in the event, at which he highlighted how important so-called cross-border regulation is for building an industry that would be able to resist big players in the sector. The boss of the UK gambling regulator further called for more decisive action when it comes to dealing with problem gambling and tackling any remaining regulatory loopholes in gambling legislation.
The UKGC boss shared an idea to have regulatory bodies collaborate on potential probes that span across an individual county’s border. According to him, such a strategy may be helpful when it comes to the regulation of a company that is present in numerous jurisdictions at the same time. Mr Rhodes explained that if this proposal is turned into a practice, it could seriously increase the scrutiny faced by casino operators and probably create safer operating conditions for gambling companies’ customers.
The calls of Mr Rhodes at the ICE World Regulatory Briefing have come at a time when the UK gambling watchdog faces some controversy in its domestic market. As Casino Guardian reported, it recently that the regulatory body used about £155 million to fund some of its operational deficits, while the money was supposed to be spent on funding good causes.
UKGC Faces Criticism over Allwyn’s Choice of National Lottery Operator and Good Causes Money Distribution
Apart from everything else, the UKGC is also facing criticism from Camelot Group over its recent decision to pick the Czech Republic-based gambling group Allwyn Entertainment as the new licence holder of the UK National Lottery.
Mr Rhodes, however, has explained that many of the British operators that have applied for the operating permit have been found to have some shortcomings in running their operations. He also noted that could be the case in other jurisdictions as well, especially considering the fact that global gambling giants are usually created through merger and acquisition deals aimed at consolidating their assets in various markets.
Despite all the criticism lately faced by the UK Gambling Commission, the CEO of the local gambling regulator did not miss to point out some of the successful moves of the watchdog in its domestic market over the last few years. He highlighted the efforts of the UKGC in cracking down on credit card gambling and enforcing its self-exclusion program GAMSTOP as an essential condition for any gambling operator to be allowed to operate in the UK.
Mr Rhodes has not denied the fact that the regulatory powers of the UKGC were not necessarily effective enough to reach all wrongdoings in the sector and there were some ecosystems, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, which were hard for the Commission to regulate. The UKGC CEO criticised advertisers of cryptocurrencies for presenting them as investments and noted that digital currencies do not usually feature enough customer protection measures. He further noted that many new products are not defined as gambling by law but he believes they should be regulated in order to prevent non-compliance patterns from continuing to occur.
- Author
Daniel Williams
