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No leadership, no evidence – how did the Commission decide on affordability checks? 

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Questions have been raised over the direction of the Gambling Commission (GC) in the UK, as it is accused of ignoring any research in its pursuit of stringent affordability checks, or financial risk assessments, depending on which side of the coin you sit.

Peter Marcus, a former Global Head of Gaming Operations for Entain, revealed that he was part of the process during the early stages of the new approach to affordability and stated it was clear that these things were simply unworkable.

He warned that since the departure of Andrew Rhodesas Chief Executive Officer, the GC has essentially stopped listening to industry and to research, marching ahead with a wilful ignorance of the consequences.

Marcus suggested that Rhodes and the GC, under his leadership, had a grasp on the severity of getting affordability checks wrong. However, he now believes that the last two years of research have been ‘a waste of time, as the commission has just pushed ahead regardless’.

There was support ..

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UK affordability check clash looming on the horizon

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A showdown is brewing in Britain involving the Gambling Commission, horse racing, the betting industry, campaign groups and MPs, all over one big issue which has been fiercely debated for over five years.

This is of course, Financial Risk Assessments, as the Gambling Commission and 2023 Gambling Act review White Paper call the measures, or ‘affordability checks’ as critics in racing and betting industry circles prefer to call them.

The Commission’s decision to press ahead with Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs) – the most extensive of the two types of affordability measure, the other being light-touch Financial Vulnerability Checks (FVCs) – has seen an outpouring of criticism.

It has now been reported by the Racing Post that the British Horseracing Authority’s (BHA) attempts to gain information about the Commission’s decisionmaking around affordability checks fell on deaf ears in the months building up to the July decision.

Commission to face the affordability music?

This weekend, ..

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IC360’s Ilkim Hincer on why integrity is so integral to Canadian sports betting

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Canada is a sports-mad nation. Hockey is a national religion, the Toronto Blue Jays captured imaginations with their World Series run last year, this summer’s FIFA World Cup had the entire country watching, the NFL, NBA, CFL, and European soccer all have an eager following, to name but a few.

This enthusiasm for sports has paid off well for the regulated sports betting industry in Ontario. And with Alberta joining its fellow province in launching a regulated market on July 13, the same can reasonably be expected there.

With the emergence of new betting markets and continued expansion of the industry, challenges always come. The conversation around sports integrity is constant, and it has been at fever pitch since last year amid numerous high-profile incidents of alleged match-fixing in North American pro and college sports.

For integrity monitoring and compliance firm Integrity Compliance 360 (IC360), preserving sports betting integrity is a way of life.

“The broader conversation g..

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Evolution and UK Gambling Commission saga ends as supplier agrees £4.75m settlement

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Evolution has agreed a £4.75m settlement with the UK Gambling Commission, concluding a licence review launched in December 2024 over the availability of its content on unlicensed websites targeting British consumers.

The settlement relates to Evolution game content being available through two operators across six websites that offered content to British players without a UK licence, in breach of the supplier’s terms of supply.

According to the business, the operators had actively evaded restrictions in place at the time.

The company stressed that “no broader pattern of unlicensed access to Evolution content in the UK was identified” during the 18-month review.

Evolution said it fully cooperated with the Commission throughout the process and immediately terminated its commercial relationships with the two operators after discovering the issue.

Martin Carlesund, Chief Executive Officer of Evolution, said: “At Evolution, we always want to do what is right, and it is not acceptable t..

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FRA reaction: Gambling Commission slammed by figures in and out of the industry

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Industry stakeholders from all angles have come out this week to condemn the Gambling Commission’s announcement that it is ready to impose Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs) on gambling operators in the UK.

Journalists were told by the Commission in a meeting on Tuesday morning that it was ready to take a “carefully thought-out staged application” of FRAs.

The first phase of the FRA programme will apply to the “largest operators” focused on the assessment of high spend customers with a check set of £5,000 net deposits accumulated over a 24-hour period.

But many across the UK, from punters to operators and law firms to horse racing enthusiasts, have slammed the Commission’s decision to go ahead with this.

A judicial review of FRA implementation?

Sophie Kemp, Partner and Head of Public Law at London-based law firm Kingsley Napley, told SBC News that she believes that “there may be strong grounds for bringing a judicial review challenge” about the approach.

“Many in the industry vie..

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In depth: Is it time for Canadian gaming to ban credit cards?

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When U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren took to X earlier this year to denounce what she called a “$10 junk fee just to fund a $20 bet”, she was not merely chastizing payment processors. Warren was signalling that the politics of how gamblers move their money is shifting, and payment rails – once the plumbing of the industry – are becoming a stage for public scrutiny.

South of the border, it feels like a movement is happening. Most major online gambling operators have stopped accepting credit card deposits across their entire U.S. operations, including:

bet365

BetMGM

Caesars

DraftKings

FanDuel

Meanwhile, numerous states already restricted their use for some forms of gambling before 2026, and several others have passed legislation or regulations this year to ban them for online sports betting. What began as a gripe about fees has morphed into a debate about whether gambling with borrowed money should exist at all.

Last week, I asked sports betting companies about Americans getting sc..

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Why the Gambling Commission is failing to alleviate FRA black market anxiety

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The Gambling Commission’s calls for calm over the impact of Financial Risk Assessments (FRAs) on the growth of the black market seem to be falling on deaf ears, as sources have emphasised to iGaming Expert that industry trepidation is only escalating.

Despite the best efforts of the GC, warnings continue to ring loudly over a lack of clarity when it comes to the implementation of FRAs.

An industry source told iGaming Expert that the move represents a ‘huge windfall’ for the illegal market, as concerns over an exodus to the black market refuse to go away for players who ‘believe they should be able to spend their money the way they want to’.

They added that the government is simply ‘doubling down’ on the stresses placed on the regulated sector by supporting FRAs after previously implementing a significant tax hike on the online gambling sector in November.

Anger from within the industry has been encapsulated by the Betting and Gaming Council’s Chief Executive Officer, Grainne Hurst,..

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Problem gambling experts detail why young men are uniquely at risk

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Read any reputable study about gambling disorders and one conclusion that will rise to the surface is that young men are perhaps the most vulnerable demographic. So why is that?

Kindbridge Behavioral Health welcomed American Institute for Boys and Men Policy Lead Jonathan D. Cohen and UCLA Clinical Professor Dr. Timothy Fong to discuss the issue on an hour-long webinar on Thursday. It yielded an insightful and thought-provoking assessment of why the modern online gambling climate contributes to what Cohen called “a toxic cocktail” of factors and hardships.

The game has changed

In short, gambling is not what it used to be. As the session’s moderator, Kindbridge’s Dr. Daniel Kaufmann, put it, gone are the days when combating difficult gambling habits meant driving home from work via a different route to avoid the casino.

“The phone is the casino now,” Kaufmann said. “And you’re not going to live life without that.”

With online sports betting apps, online casinos, prediction market p..

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Predictions, finance and a brewing storm of problem gambling

A.J. Koehn0123 views

The global rise of prediction markets globally could throw a spanner in the works of gambling harm prevention and treatment programmes in countries like the UK, writes SBC News’ Editor, Ted Orme-Claye.

Driven by a combination of industry responsibility, regulatory pressure and public demand, betting companies in the UK have placed a much heavier onus on player protection, education and responsibility in recent years.

Prediction markets, however, are a relatively new phenomenon which bridge the gap between betting and financial trading – though some would argue that they are betting exchanges with a different skin.

It has also been documented that people working in financial services, particularly trading environments, may be more at risk of suffering from problem gambling and gambling-related harm than those working in other industries.

Yesterday, FT Adviser revealed that financial services and investment company Hargreaves Lansdown is asking potential investors about whether or no..

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