UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes emphasised the need to work with the industry to achieve ”the best outcomes we possibly can”.
In his third annual briefing for industry CEOs, Rhodes delivered a speech updating industry representatives on the UKGC’s progress in 2024 and “highlighted key areas of innovation, collaboration and transparency that we’re focusing on for the next 12 months”.
Reflecting on the CEO briefing, he said: “There are a lot of reasons why days like today are important, bringing together such a massive amount of the industry in one room to be able to talk about what we’ve been doing, what’s ahead and the areas we really want the industry to focus on and be really clear about that.
“It also gave us a chance to talk about the evidence base, what sort of things we’re relying on, how we’re going to do that in the future and how we do that working with the industry to deliver the best outcomes we possibly can.”
Key talking points
Among Rhodes’ key points from his speech was an improvement in consumer protection assessment outcomes following the UKGC’s launch, in collaboration with the Betting and Gaming Council, of a voluntary code of contact.
He noted that only 42% of assessments came back with ‘Good/Satisfactory’ results between April and June this year, however, this figure rose to 75% between July and September – with the general outlook being that this will soon improve further.
Elsewhere, Rhodes also warned of the need for greater collaborative efforts and commercial due diligence to disrupt the black market.
He told the audience: “I said to you last year that I wanted to encourage you to use your commercial influence with any partner or supplier to ensure that you were taking all the relevant steps to verify they were not supporting illegal activity in Great Britain.
“Today, I am going one step further and strongly suggest you all undertake due diligence to ensure none of your suppliers are directly or indirectly engaged in supporting unlicensed activity in this market.”
One of Rhodes’ final remarks concerned the replacement of the Health Survey with the Gambling Survey for Great Britain.
He described the new survey as a “big step forward” that will help “track trends in gambling behaviour in the years to come”.
Also present at the CEO Briefing was Helen Bryce, the UKGC’s Head of Statistics, and she emphasised the importance of speaking to leaders in the industry about the new survey.
“We’ve been working on the Gambling Survey for Great Britain for a number of years and we launched the first annual report earlier this year,” explained Bryce.
“It’s a really good opportunity with all the CEOs in the room to tell them about the survey, its advantages, and also to respond to their questions about the survey and what it means for them. We’re also going to take the opportunity to talk to them about future plans for the survey as well.”
National Lottery turns 30
Today (19 November) also marks the 30th birthday of the National Lottery. To mark the occasion the organisation revealed that £50bn has been raised for the National Lottery Good Causes scheme since its inception in 1994.
The UKGC also released a video to celebrate the anniversary. Staff from the organisation spent time volunteering at Compost Culture, a local community project funded by the Good Causes scheme.
The commission stated: “A big thank you to Compost Culture for taking us on, to our colleagues at the Commission for signing up and to the National Lottery Community Fund for their incredible work over the last three decades that make initiatives like this so successful.”
