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are areas that should be given less evidential weight, where things are driven more by opinion than fact and evidence, That’s not a reason to disengage with particular audiences, because then you are immediately limiting the potential perspectives that you can take on board. SP: Yes, because after all, there are quality criteria for research, and the mere fact that funding, or some funding may come from industry, doesn't tell us anything about the quality of the outcome. To illustrate, pre-eminent scholars at Harvard University and Yale University have accepted industry funding for their research and it would be a stretch to claim that this fact alone would render their publications irrelevant. TM: Money is one part of it because obviously the more funding you've got, the more research you can do. But money itself won't automatically increase the quality of that research. For me, if we can all approach research with an open mind, not automatically to assume that because industry is involved, it's not going to be of value, or equally, to assume that just because industry hasn't been involved, that it's a completely independent piece of work. Because, frankly, we have seen examples of bias on both sides. There can be a risk that if research is funded by a particular party, that it is open to the to the risk that bias could creep in. You've seen that over many years in places like the tobacco industry where the independence of some of the research was compromised by the funding sources. So those that are concerned about independence are not wrong to be concerned, but I don't consider that it impossible to overcome. And I don't believe that an effective research landscape completely excludes the industry from that work, because I just don't think that leads to a high-quality evidence base. SP: Another aspect I've observed in many jurisdictions is that research grants go only to researchers from that jurisdiction, and essentially nobody else is considered. Does the UKGC research roadmap permit researchers from around the world to participate?
we’ve worked closely with academics in the United States and with research organizations in Canada as well. I think that is probably one of the most interesting and exciting things about where we are now in our journey as a regulator. We’re dealing with such an international industry that there are so many opportunities to learn from different jurisdictions. For a long time, because the UK was such a big player and a mature market, that a lot of the learning flowed from us to other jurisdictions. But we’re increasingly in a position where we're learning, for example, from the way that markets developed in the United States following the Supreme Court's decision there several years ago. We're learning from places like Ontario that has taken a very similar regulatory model to us but applied it in a slightly different societal context. Research is exactly the same, bringing in views from all over the world really does enhance what you do as a regulator. We are absolutely committed to international cooperation. SP: The UK has been regulated for 20 plus years. It is very dynamic, as we've as we've said, but it's relatively mature. What is it about the next five to 10 years that you're looking forward to, that you think we should anticipate and you're excited to tackle? TM: If I go back to 2016 when I started, whilst we had some engagement with regulators and governments in other parts of the world, it sometimes felt because we were plowing a fairly lonely furrow on this stuff. We didn't have many regulatory peers to bounce our idea off but that's really started to change. We've had a couple of vehicles that have been great for that. I sit on the board of GREF, the Gambling Regulators European Forum, that brings together 40 jurisdictions across Europe to collaborate with each other. One of my team, Ben Haden, is President of IAGA, the International Association of Gambling Regulators. So, we are now engaging with gambling regulators on almost every continent. It really excites me that we've now got a proper peer group of regulators that we can really engage with, that we can share our learning with, but we can also learn from. I think that can only make for better regulation, particularly in a world where the people we regulate are going to be operating in many of those jurisdictions as well.
TM: Absolutely, and we would encourage it. Over the years,
IMGL MAGAZINE | MARCH 2026
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