Is toothless watchdog asleep at the wheel?
THE gambling watchdog was last night criticised as ‘toothless’ in the wake of the Daily Mail’s investigation.
The quango, which receives £19million a year in licence fees from gambling companies, was set up under Tony Blair as part of the 2005 Gambling Act.
The legislation, brought in to police the booming gaming industry, licensed internet betting for the first time and led to a surge in online poker sites.
Campaigners fear the regulator has been outpaced by smartphones offering 24/ 7 access to gambling websites.
The Gambling Commission employs 340 people, mostly in Birmingham, and receives a small amount of public funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Its former chief executive, Sarah Harrison, received £190,000 a year before leaving to be replaced by former solicitor Neil McArthur last year.
The regulator can fine bookmakers in breach of its Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP). Under the regulations, betting companies can set their own limits on rebates and cash bonuses providing the bonus is ‘proportionate to the type and level of gambling’.
Bookmakers can assign ‘VIP status’ to high spenders as long as they have ‘specific provision’ to identify potential problem gamblers. Paul Kanolik, a solicitor with Ellis Jones, described the regulations as ‘vague and not that specific’.
The Gambling Commission has been forced to harden its stance amid a surge in problem gamblers. Over the past 12 months, the watchdog dished out £28million in penalties for
‘social responsibility failings,’ many for encouraging highspending gamblers losing large sums of money.
The watchdog has described VIP schemes as an area of ‘risk’ and vowed to investigate fears that online bookmakers use them to ‘encourage and incentivise punters to spend more’.
William Hill was fined £6.2million last February while 32Red was fined £2million in June for assigning VIP status to a problem gambler who deposited £758,000 with no social-responsibility checks. In 2017, 888.com received a £7.8million sanction for failing to protect its vulnerable customers.
Despite this, many fear the regulator is not doing enough. Labour MP Carolyn Harris, chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on gambling, said ‘lax’ enforcement has created ‘a wild west world of online gambling flourishing under a toothless regulator.’ She added: ‘I’m always astounded by how easy it is for the bookmakers to offer incentives to vulnerable people. It is exploitation. This is an immoral industry preying on people at their lowest ebb.
‘[The Gambling Commission] seem more interested in being everybody’s friend.’
MPs and campaigners have previously criticised it for failing to recommend cutting stakes on fixed-odds betting terminals from £100 to £2.
Tom Watson, deputy Labour leader, accused the regulator of ‘caving in to industry pressure’ when it made its recommendations in May last year.
A spokesman for the Gambling Commission said: ‘Where we find operators failing to protect customers from gamblingrelated harm we will take tough action. Our rules require all operators to act in a socially responsible way.’