On Monday, shortly before 8 a.m., a new account on X published its first post: ‘A group of leading economists and experts has today launched an independent review of UK gambling laws and regulations, alongside an open call for evidence.’
The debate about gambling reform and regulation is febrile; trust has completely broken down between the industry and those pushing for change
The Gambling Policy Commission – 80 followers; blue tick – continued: ‘The Gambling Policy Commission comes over 20 years after the publication of the Budd Report and the introduction of the 2005 Gambling Act. It is comprised of former advisers to the Bank of England, HM Treasury, the Independent Football Regulator and the Social Mobility Commission.’
The implication, confirmed by the GPC website, is that the 2005 Gambling Act is no longer fit for purpose. It must be overhauled to address the prominence of online gambling and the emergence of cryptocurrencies and prediction markets. ‘Successive governments have responded through incremental reforms,’ it states, ‘but there has been no comprehensive reassessment of the legislation itself.’
So that Monday morning tweet, it seems, represents a major intervention, one which could fundamentally change the gambling landscape in the UK.
Or is it? There is a bit to unpick here. The first thing to say is that the Gambling Policy Commission is not the Gambling Commission, the industry regulator, whose chair is appointed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. That single word, ‘policy’, is key, though you’d be forgiven for missing it.
The second is that the comparison with the Budd report, while no doubt validating for the GPC, is a bit of an overreach. Budd’s report was commissioned – and, crucially, funded – by the government, which then incorporated the majority of its 176 recommendations into the 2005 Gambling Act. The GPC has no such authority, even if its website states that ‘a final report [will set] out recommendations for the future legislative framework and, where appropriate, draft legislative proposals’.
With this in mind, the GPC has called for evidence from ‘researchers, consumers, gambling operators, trade bodies, treatment and prevention organisations, sports organisations, policymakers and others with relevant experience’ to be submitted by February 2027. Quite what the GPC plans to do with this evidence is unclear. The Gambling Commission, seemingly irked, was quick to point out that the GPC ‘is not a statutory body and it plays no role in regulating gambling in Great Britain’. True enough, though there is no shortage of people in government ready to lend the GPC a sympathetic ear.
For what the GPC does have is massive financial clout. And this is where things get interesting. The person funding this ‘independent committee’, which we are assured ‘operates independently of government, political parties, and the gambling industry’, is Derek Webb.
Webb’s involvement is, of course, no great surprise. The multimillionaire poker player and card game inventor, who now campaigns for gambling reform, bankrolls a wide range of think tanks and campaign groups. These include: the Campaign for Fairer Gambling; the Coalition to End Gambling Ads; Gambling with Lives, whose trustee Janet O’Sullivan is, it should be noted, on the newly formed GPC committee; and the Social Market Foundation, which has successfully lobbied for tax increases on bookmakers and adult gaming centres (James Noyes, senior fellow of the SMF, is also on the GPC committee and was instrumental in setting it up). Webb has not been shy about his funding of the GPC, describing it as ‘my gift to the country’.
All of this is dwarfed, however, by Webb’s donations to the Labour party: between 2023 and 2024, Webb gave £1.3 million to Labour, making him the fifth-largest individual donor. He has also donated many thousands of pounds to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform, whose vice-chair is Labour MP Beccy Cooper, appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Cabinet Office in July.
As I reported in September, Webb’s donation to the APPG was funnelled through a firm called Dentons Global Advisors, whose head of public affairs is Katherine Morgan, once private secretary in Gordon Brown’s Treasury. This is important since Brown has made no secret of his close relationship with Prime Minister Andy Burnham and will no doubt have been pleased that his call to raise machine games duty (MGD) in the Budget was heeded, despite warnings from the gambling and horse racing industries that any further taxation will lead to another round of shop closures and job losses.
So can the gambling industry expect a fair hearing? The GPC is adamant that it can.
Webb told The Spectator:
‘The 2019 Labour manifesto included a new Gambling Act. A new act could only include pragmatic, evidence-based recommendations. The GPC will be more independent and expeditious than relying on the Gambling Commission and DCMS would be. I expect to disagree with some GPC recommendations.
I signed a document satisfying the GPC and associated universities confirming the status. I had not seen the press release or the website until they were public and was not aware of the names of all members until then. The bizarre panic of trade outriders to this initiative is a counterproductive exercise.’
The GPC’s chief economist, Professor James Reade, added in a statement to The Spectator:
‘I haven’t met Derek Webb, and I’ve had no suggestion that he would seek to exert any influence over our inquiry. I wouldn’t have accepted the invitation had there been any sense of limits on my ability to carry out the job.
Moreover, the committee is formed of academics and other investigators thoroughly used to complete freedom of expression when it comes to their work, none of whom would have accepted our invitation had it entailed any restriction on that freedom and independence. We expect the research and contributions to adhere to the highest academic standards, including replicability and open data, and the proof of the pudding will be in the report that we produce.’
It would be unfair, then, to disregard the GPC before it has even started its research. There are serious figures on the committee, who add a degree of balance. Reade is professor of economics at the University of Reading and co-authored a study showing that Ascot racecourse contributes more than £260 million to the UK economy; Philippe Auclair is a highly respected sports journalist, whom it is hard to imagine being influenced; and Noyes has voiced concern that calls for gambling reform risk tipping over into prohibition. Their challenge is to establish common ground with the more sceptical factions on the committee.
But others remain unconvinced. Gambling policy expert Vaughan Lewis posted on X: ‘An independent review is a great idea. Marking your own homework and dressing it up as independent isn’t.’ And one industry source says: ‘There’s a scene in Blackadder Goes Forth where General Melchett opens a court martial by putting on the symbolic black cap before the hearing even begins, joking “I’ll be needing that later”. This independent commission has all the hallmarks of that.’
The debate about gambling reform and regulation is febrile; trust has completely broken down between the industry and those pushing for change. Tax rises in successive Budgets have already led to hundreds of job losses in licensed high street bookmakers, and cost racing millions of pounds in sponsorship and levy contributions. These arrived on the back of the 2023 white paper, ‘Gambling Reform for the Digital Age’, and the introduction of financial risk assessments. Senior industry figures ask: how much more does the anti-gambling lobby want from us before it is satisfied?
If the GPC wants to be taken seriously – to be the successor to the Budd report – it must first demonstrate that it really is prepared to listen to voices antithetical to the campaign groups funded by Webb.
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