BGC Threatens Legal Action Against the Gambling Commission Over Financial Risk Checks

The battle over the proposed rollout of financial risk assessments continues, with the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) threatening legal action against the Gambling Commission if they proceed with the implementation of the controversial scheme.

BGC chief Grainne Hurst has written a letter to the regulator’s interim chairman, Charles Counsell, warning that the introduction of affordability checks would be ‘open to legal challenge’.

Given that the trade body represents the interests of some of the UK’s largest betting firms, including bet365, Flutter and Entain, they would have plenty of financial firepower to take on the Gambling Commission in the courts.

Real World

The regulator will be holding its next board meeting on Thursday (May 21).

It’s unlikely to be any ordinary meeting, with the topic of financial risk assessments (FRAs) set to dominate the agenda – with Commission board members discussing whether or not to implement the scheme in its current form.

They will have a chance to assess the results of the pilot scheme, which haven’t been disclosed publicly. But they will also have the comments and criticism of other stakeholders ringing in their ears.

Dr James Noyes, an advisor to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), sensationally quit the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group last week over his concerns about the financial risk assessments scheme, labelling their possible introduction – without governmental or third-party scrutiny – as ‘clearly unacceptable’.

However Tim Miller, the regulator’s executive director, has warned that the only way to test the efficiency of the risk assessments scheme is in the ‘real world’.

“You can't properly evaluate something until it has actually been rolled out,” he told the audience at the CMS gambling conference last week. “It's the case with everything else in the [gambling] white paper, you evaluate it once it's there in the real world so you can understand it.”

And contrary to reports, Miller has revealed that the decision on whether to green light affordability checks may not be made for a while yet.

“The next board meeting has been turned into something akin to giving royal assent to a piece of legislation, when it's nothing of the sort,” he said.

Fit for Purpose

There are concerns that the background checks will push more punters to black market operators, whose unlicensed status means that they have no obligation to check on the spending of their customers.

The rise of the £16.6 billion illegal sector is also stripping much needed revenue from horse racing, which relies heavily on the levy fund paid by licensed operators, as well as the government’s Treasury.

The BGC has written to several key figures, including Gambling Commission board members and DCMS lead Lisa Nandy, reporting the ‘grave’ concerns of their members.

“The evidence from the pilot is that financial risk assessments are not fit for purpose,” the letter reads. “Accordingly, the BGC and its members would have to consider all available options should the Gambling Commission implement them without taking into account those findings.”

The ‘findings’ referred to include reports that credit agencies produced different results for the same individual, while the regulator has also confirmed that the ‘frictionless’ success rate of their pilot was less than 100%.

“If FRAs are not effective and would result in more customers playing with illegal operators to evade checks, they should not be implemented,” the BGC letter reads.

In response, a spokesperson for the Gambling Commission has commented that the checks would be frictionless for the vast majority of individuals, with only a ‘small proportion’ of the highest spending punters assessed.