The Gambling Commission is failing.
Rise in black
market betting
Increased press and lobbying roles
Funding of campaigns as opposed to treating problem gambling
Poor oversight of how funds are spent
Poor oversight of how funds are spent
Aggressive enforcement tactics
The Gambling Commission was set up in 2005 tasked with making gambling “fairer and safer’...
It is failing.
By adopting a role as both a regulator and major funder of campaign groups it has lost a sense of objectivity and is straying badly from its original purpose.
It has overseen an explosion in black market gambling which according to some estimates accounts for a tenth of the market with 531 illegal sports betting and casino operators actively targeting British customers.
It has funded campaigning organisations which have misused statistics and misled the public and politicians, continuing to write the cheques despite knowing this.
These funds, which are raised from the licensing gambling industry, should be used to treat people with gambling disorder, not finance political campaigns.
In raising these funds, The Gambling Commission applies an aggressive and inconsistent approach to meeting its objectives with terrible consequences for businesses and individuals.
In the last ten years, despite its failings, the Gambling Commission has grown considerably and its spending has more than quadrupled.
It is time for the government to reign in this regulator so that gambling is truly made fairer and safer.
Between 2014-15 and 2024-25:
- The number of employees increased by 58%, from 262 to 416
- Total spending increased by 219%, from £18.3m to £60.3m
- The pay package of the Chief Executive increased by 68%, from £179,000 to £300,000
1.
The growth of the black market
The share of the gambling market taken up by illegal operators is growing.
Estimates of just how much vary with some analysts putting the figure at 9%, but there is widespread agreement that it is growing.
A 2025 poll by YouGov found that nearly a third of those who bet were “likely to use an unregulated gambling site” if it offered better promotions or odds, while 14% admitted already using a black market sites.
According to the Gambling Commission’s Executive Director, some of these illegal sites are run by “criminal networks” who are involved with “terrorists and organised crime”.
This surge was widely predicted by analysts.
At the same time, the amount of legal betting has fallen, with per capita gambling expenditure declining by 16% in real terms since 2015/16.
But upon his appointment as Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission in 2022, Andrew Rhodes played down the problem saying that while the “so called black market” poses various problems, he believed that the associated “risks” are “overstated”.
Despite this complacency, Mr Rhodes has been paid five-figure bonuses in each of the full years he has spent at the helm of the Gambling Commission.
2.
Distorting Democracy
Distorting Democracy
The 2024 General Election was the first that most people had heard of the Gambling Commission.
During the campaign, it came to light that a number of Conservative Party employees, candidates and police officers had placed bets on the date of the election. The ensuing press coverage dominated the agenda for weeks and was the most heard-about issue during the campaign.
In June, the Labour candidate for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, Kevin Craig, was revealed to have placed a bet on the outcome in this constituency. He was suspended from the Party and placed under investigation by the Gambling Commission. The seat was subsequently won by The Conservatives.
Five months after election day, the Gambling Commission closed its investigation after concluding that there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
During General Elections, public bodies like the Gambling Commission are subject to “purdah” rules which state that “NDPB (which includes the Gambling Commission) activity should not be seen to compete with the election campaign for public attention.”
These rules were clearly broken by the Gambling Commission. In the words of ITV Political Editor Robert Peston:
“Purdah rules exist to maintain the integrity of the electoral process, and it is blindingly obvious that the electoral process has been distorted by the betting-scandal leaks.”
These leaks can only have come from the Gambling Commission.
3.
Bankrolling misleading campaigns
Before 2021, “regulatory settlements”, payments made by gambling operators for breaches of conditions, were intended to be used in support of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.
Since then however, payments have been directed towards ‘socially responsible purposes’.
More than £92million has been handed out under this process.
But the Gambling Commission has never carried out an assessment of the efficacy of this spending or whether it was even used for its intended purposes.
This is despite Parliament pressing the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission on the matter repeatedly.
The Gambling Commission’s own rules state that “regulatory settlement funds will not be applied for the purposes of campaigning or lobbying.”
It has however repeatedly engaged in, and provided funds for campaigning and lobbying:
- In 2022, former Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes told a meeting of the Advisory Board on Gambling Safety that “things have never been more favourable” for increased taxation on the sector and that the Gambling Commission could influence the Treasury.
- In 2021 the Gambling Commission awarded £140,050 to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research to conduct an evaluation of benefits and costs of gambling.
The scope of the work was changed after the award was made without the Gambling Commission’s approval and went on to conclude that problem gamblers included people who have never gambled.
When the report came under fire for its methodological flaws, the Gambling Commission refused to investigate and said it had no power to clawback funds if they were misused.
- In 2022, the chair of the Gambling Commission’s Advisory Board for Safer Gambling advised the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities that criticism of its cost figures was valid – but then intimated that accuracy in such matters was beside the point and that scrutiny of public health mortality claims was “a distraction from what matters to people and families harmed by gambling”.
- The Gambling Commission conducted a survey showing the rate of problem gambling to be 5-8 times higher than previous official estimates. In an official review of the data, a Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the London School of Economics found there was “a non-negligible risk that they substantially over-state the true9 level of gambling and gambling harm in the population”.
After initially issuing guidance warning that the figures were likely inflated, the guidance was weakened just before the Autumn Budget despite the objections of statisticians at the LSE and within the Commission itself.
- The survey found that going those who visit art galleries and museums were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not.
- The Commission has stated that spending money on betting rather than going to the cinema is a gambling harm.
Producing and funding “research” of this nature does nothing to help elected representatives make informed decisions about the best way to regulate the industry.
4.
Suppressing information
Policymakers need unbiased, honest information if they are to make sensible decisions about gambling regulation. The Gambling Commission actively works against this.
In 2021 the Commission conducted a survey into gambling harms and what should be done.
Just 14% of respondents said that they would be willing to provide financial information to bookmakers to assess whether their gambling was affordable. 42 per cent said they would refuse to provide information, and a further 23 per cent said they would stop using a bookmaker which asked for financial information and switch to another.
The Gambling Commission kept these findings secret and excluded them from the 2023 consultation on “Financial Risk Assessments”. They were only obtained three and a half years later through a Freedom of Information request.
Instead, the Gambling Commission commissioned another survey on the subject, this time prompting respondents with the claim that affordability checks would “protect the most vulnerable while allowing everyone to enjoy gambling without harm” and showing them newspaper headlines stating that “gambling addicts will die” if the proposed reforms were delayed.
Unsurprisingly, this “survey” showed the exact opposite of the previous one with 78% supporting further financial checks.
Regulation should not be set purely by what consumers want. But by suppressing inconvenient findings from surveys which fail to provide the “correct” answer and replacing it with biased research, the Commission is increasing the likelihood that poor policy will be implemented.
Ignoring the views of customers and imposing poorly-conceived regulations on the legal sector will further fuel the black market.
The change that is needed
The Gambling Commission is currently looking for a new Chief Executive. The appointment has to be signed off by the Culture Secretary:
The new appointment must:
- Prioritise tackling of the black market.
- Acknowledge the well-established link between increased restrictions on the legal market and growth off the illicit market.
- Cease funding campaigning and lobbying.
- Prioritise these funds on the treatment of people with gambling addiction.
- Increase the integrity of any research carried out or commissioned so that it better informs policy makers.
- Commit to ending the distortion of electoral processes.
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2. Gambling Commission account, 2014-14 and 2024-25
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly3x9ngj18o
5. based on gambling industry revenue figures from the Gambling Commission and population estimates from the ONS. https://insider.iea.org.uk/p/britain-is-gambling-less-than-you?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
6. https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news/article/andrew-rhodes-speech-at-the-ceo-briefing-2022
7. Gambling Commission Accounts
8. https://x.com/Peston/status/1804793148192739385
9. https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-for-submitting-a-proposal-for-regulatory-settlement-funding/submitting-a-proposal-for-regulatory-settlement-funding-what-will-not-be#:~:text=Contents,and%20support)%20in%20exceptional%20circumstances
10. https://assets.ctfassets.net/gmw89wuqdx3b/6eNh71cEX6uHMnq3K8UeWn/4e1773e6ced6c2adb920f8d38d9b85f1/CASE_202300143_17.pdf
11.
12. https://danwaugh.substack.com/p/galleries-gambling-and-self-harm
13. https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121981/1/Sturgis_Assessment_of_the_gambling_survey_for_great_britain_published.pdf
14. https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/about-us/page/guidance-on-using-statistics-from-the-gambling-survey-for-great-britain
15. https://danwaugh.substack.com/p/galleries-gambling-and-self-harm
16. https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/about-us/guide/update-pilot-of-survey-questions-to-understand-gambling-related-harm
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