ENFORCEMENT
with the same social responsibility requirements as licensed gambling entities. Another provision in the White Paper that will enhance the Commission’s powers to tackle illegal gambling is currently before parliament as part of the Criminal Justice Bill. The Commission will be given powers (as will other regulators) to apply to a court for a payment or web blocking order, which will enable it to disrupt illegal activity where they are unable to secure co-operation from ISP’s and payment processors. To demonstrate the potential effectiveness of such powers, the Danish Gaming Authority recently announced that it had secured a record number of court orders blocking 83 websites offering illegal gambling In Denmark, 8 of which involved skins betting sites. I had reason to review 6 separate cease and desist orders issued by the Gambling Commission during the course of last year. Most were for skins sites that either allowed the customer to cash out or exchange skins for items of marketable value. As the Deputy CEO of the Gambling Commission said in a speech to the Swedish Regulator’s Conference in early March: “What is an illegal, unlicensed operator for me in Great Britain may be a legitimate, licensed business for you, and vice versa.” 7 The Commission has, understandably, been taking a particularly tough line with the advertising of illegal sites that are targeted at self-excluded customers. All UKGC licensed remote operators are required to sign up to and participate in the National Multi-Operator Self Exclusion Scheme, GAMSTOP. As flagged in their last enforcement report, the Commission’s intelligence unit has picked up numerous illegal gaming sites advertised as being “Not on GAMSTOP” that are specifically targeting vulnerable customers who have entered into self-exclusion on GAMSTOP. However, the advertising of such sites is not restricted to gambling operators. Two of the cease and desist orders we dealt with last year involved businesses
t hat were not part of the gambling industry but were permitting “Not on GAMSTOP sites” to be advertised in their journal. It was a hard lesson for the company as the Commission requested that their ISP block the sites and it resulted in the complete closure of an international non- gambling business for six days. The company had not responded to the Commission’s order and so the message is clear: do not ignore a cease and desist order from a Regulator. International Co-operation between Regulators The last point I want to cover is the increase in international co-operation between gambling regulators in intelligence sharing to tackle illegal activity. In Europe there has been long standing co-operation amongst the members of GREF (Gambling Regulators European Forum) in the sharing of intelligence and enforcement activity. On 2nd February 2024 the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) announced the formation of the Illegal Gambling Working Group following extensive discussion at their 2023 Botswana conference. The Gambling Commission has volunteered to steward the Group. This will clearly be a topic of interest at the combined IMGL – IAGR autumn conference in Rome. At the March conference Sarah Gardner addressed in Stockholm, she confirmed the signing of an updated Memorandum of Understanding with the Swedish Gaming Authority, being just one many such agreements the Commission has with other regulators – both national and international. In her speech she referenced some statistics that are worthy of note. In just one year the Commission increased their enforcement activity by over 500 percent between 2021/22 and 2022/23 and doubled the number of successful positive business disruption outcomes, in addition to the action taken against illegal promotions on social media.
ANDREW COTTON Senior Associate Solicitor, Irwin Mitchell For information contact +44 (0)207 421 3994 Andrew.Cotton@irwinmitchell.com
7 https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news/article/swedish-gambling-regulator-conference-sarah-gard- ner-speech
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IMGL MAGAZINE | APRIL 2024
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