Licensed UK Casinos Brace for Harsh Measures from UKGC

At the recent Shard Financial Vulnerability Summit 2021 Sarah Gardner, Acting Joint Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission, spoke openly and honestly about the Commission’s view of the gambling sector and what needs to be done to protect the UK’s at-risk population.

Gardner went on to add:

“An issue that is key to how we tackle gambling harms and reducing risk in gambling, vulnerability is a topic that is often perceived quite narrowly; but it is increasingly being recognised across many sectors that the circumstances of vulnerability are complex and unique.”

However, the “depth” of their actions was then summed as their decision to apply additional limitation, restrictions, and most likely penalties to the online gambling industry under the guise of making them safer and removing features that increase problem gambling.

 Pushing Operators to Their Limits

Despite reports from health and data companies proving that online gambling spend is down and that the ratio of at-risk gamblers has not increased since the pandemic the UK Gambling Commission continues to put pressure on licensed operators.

This pressure comes in the form of limiting promotions, capping player spend and player time online. This inability to acquire players and generate revenues is hard enough as it is when you add in the costs of licencing, funding of at-risk support (which is essential) and other costs of doing business in competitive regulated markets small to mid-size operators are in an incredibly challenging position.

Gardner alludes to the fact that they know this, and that there are tougher financial times ahead by saying:

“We know many gambling firms have had a tough year and tougher decisions to make to save jobs and livelihoods. We will work with those operators who step up to work with us.”

The inclusion of the “work with us” in the above statement has been received by many as coming with an “or else” attached. So rather than looking for intelligent ways to help players the Commission will simply impose further financial restrictions on the industry while demanding their full fees and taxes.

Impending Black Market Resurgence?

The last two years have seen several licenced operators relinquish their licences and leave the UK as a market citing high cost and lack of profits. With the pandemic and the Commission’s announcement of additional strictures, we could likely see an increase in operators leaving the market and an increase in black market casinos targeting unhappy UK punters.

The February 2021 report entitled “Review of Unlicensed Online Gambling in the UK” saw PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report that while there had been a minor reduction in unlicensed operators who appear in local gambling and casino Google searches the overall number of UK gamblers who played at illegal casinos had doubled to 460,000 players.

These nearly half a million gamblers represent an annualised gambling spend of nearly £3 billion. That is a large amount of lost taxable revenue being spent offshore and places a large portion of the gambling public at risk of abuse because the Commission is not acting in the best interest of the whole local gambling industry.