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together. Hopefully the regulator is an independent voice and authoritative voice that can cut through some of the noise that often exists around industry debates. SP: So the next obvious question is: was it your advice to the UK Chancellor to raise tax rates in the UK? TM: Tax is one of the areas where typically we don't give advice. That's exclusively for the Treasury and for the Chancellor, and frankly, as a gambling regulator, we don't have the expertise in economics and fiscal policy to have a reliable enough view. We did engage with government during that process to make sure that the way that the gambling industry worked was understood by officials. We wanted to give a sense as to where we see the risks are in the industry, and to draw on examples
channelization rates.
TM: Being really open about it, whenever there is a significant external change that impacts the industry – whether that be economic, geopolitical or whatever – it is harder for a regulator than regulating in an environment where things are relatively calm and predictable. Any significant change in tax will slightly churn the environment and that does make regulation in that environment more complex. But frankly, in the 10 years I've been at the Commission, in the 25 years I've been in regulation, there's probably been more periods where we're operating in an environment of churn than in an environment of calm. Just look back over the last few years, the 2008 financial crisis, the pandemic and so on, there's not been a significant time period where things have not been changing in this industry.
from other jurisdictions. The Netherlands was one place where there have been changes to tax, so we were able to talk a bit about the impact from that. But in the end, the government has to look at this through a much wider lens than we do. We bring a very narrow perspective as gambling regulator, the government has wider public policy considerations that they need to take into account.
" If we can work together, if we can look at both the supply side and the demand side, then growth in the illegal market doesn't have to be inevitable. "
SP: Changing topic for a moment, research comes under your remit at UKGC. There has been a change recently to the way research is funded and a lot more of that money being directed by UKGC directly. I'd like to understand a little bit more about that.
TM: So, I think you’re referring to the Statutory Levy that the government brought in last year. Historically, research, education, prevention and treatment were all funded through a voluntary arrangement with industry, where industry made contributions to fund those things. There were a range of issues with that approach, independence being one that was often mentioned, and I think it did make it too easy for people to question the independence of some of the work, even perhaps when that wasn't justified. The other big issue was that you didn't have very good predictability of funding, so you couldn't make long term funding decisions for some of this work. Under the Statutory Levy, all operators are required to contribute, then there is an independent commissioning arrangement that decides how the pot gets used for treatment services and things like that.
The government has acknowledged the likely impacts from the tax change, particularly around a move to the illegal market. That’s one of the reasons why we were given, for the first time, taxpayer funding for some of our work in the illegal market. That will be important if, as a result of tax changes, we do see a large scale shift to the illegal market. If that happens, then I don't think we as gambling regulator will be able to prevent it by ourselves, but we can certainly mitigate it. Going back to the Taskforce that I've mentioned, if we can work together, if we can look at both the supply side and the demand side then growth in the illegal market doesn't have to be inevitable. SP: We wouldn't expect you to criticize the Treasury for their decisions, but it must make life more difficult to keep those high
IMGL MAGAZINE | MARCH 2026
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