Letters: Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes responds to British racing's statement

Yesterday’s story carried unfair criticism of the commission from Arena Racing Company chief executive Martin Cruddace and NTF chief executive Paul Johnson based on significant misunderstandings.

It was claimed the Gambling Commission is ‘unaccountable’, ignoring that we are, like other public sector bodies, accountable to government and parliament. In fact, just yesterday gambling minister Baroness Twycross backed our implementation of our White Paper commitments, including our proposed approach to customer checks.

We also fully engage with British horseracing and we will continue to listen and engage, with a focus on permitting a thriving industry while protecting people from harms and unfair practices.

Yesterday’s piece claimed we are unable to demonstrate any evidence as to the impact that the “current affordability measures” are having on problem gambling rates, and that we wish to introduce checks on people spending as little as £4.

This is a thorough misunderstanding of what has been happening and what we are proposing. 

For a start there are no current “affordability” checks in force through regulation and we are not proposing so-called affordability checks. Instead, we are proposing proportionate checks to support the most financially vulnerable customers. We want to tackle cases where customers have been able to gamble large amounts without checks, leading to significant harms. We have undoubtedly seen in our assessments, a radical reduction in the number of cases we see of high levels of customer spend without any interaction or support. 

In recent years operators may have chosen to carry out checks in response to their obligation to tackle money-laundering and make gambling safer and considering the emergence of examples of consumers gambling away eye-watering and damaging sums in very short periods without any checks or support.

But this has led to an inconsistent approach, with some operators asking for bank statements and added friction for consumers.

And that is the reason why we have pushed ahead with light touch financial vulnerability checks and are currently conducting a pilot of frictionless financial risk assessments, and supported the voluntary code developed by the BGC to improve operator practices and consistency in this area. 

These are aimed at reducing inconsistency and friction, respecting the freedom of adults to gamble, while also supporting customers who are particularly financially vulnerable. It is important to remember these are thresholds for checks and not limits on what someone choses to spend. 

The light touch financial risk checks simply involve using publicly available data to determine whether a customer is particularly financially vulnerable such as in bankruptcy. The operator must then take action to support a customer such as offering deposit limits especially if there are other indicators of harm. Currently the trigger for the check is a net deposit of £500 per 30 days but will drop to £150 from February 2025. This ensures the checks are targeted at higher spending customers, and most customers will not be checked.

The ongoing pilot of frictionless financial risk assessments is not implemented in the live environment and is not affecting customers. The 2023 White Paper proposed that these checks should occur for the highest spending customers at £1,000 net deposit within 24 hours or £2,000 within 90 days.

If implemented, these checks would take place for only the highest spending customers and the check would also be frictionless for the vast majority who undergo them. Further information would only be requested from customers as a last resort.

With reference to the assumption that non-mandated operator checks have led to reduced turnover, we would urge caution as turnover will be impacted by a wide range of factors, such as changes in consumer spending power or product competition.

Evidence informs our decision-making and we will continue to review our findings to balance our drive to protect the most vulnerable consumers and similarly protect the freedom of adults to gamble. We hope and expect others to do the same.

Read these next:

British racing lays blame for £3bn black hole at door of 'out of control and unaccountable' Gambling Commission  

Our government is overseeing a decline in a sport which brings so much joy to every part of society, alongside billions to our economy 

The £3 billion black hole: calls for urgent action on affordability checks as online betting turnover on racing crashes 

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