At this year’s AGM, the Betting & Gaming Council covered the UK’s illegal market and debuted a new ‘Spot the Difference’ game. Can you tell us a little more about this year’s meeting?

The theme of this year’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) was entitled The Illegal Market: Real Risks and Real Harm. The reason that we landed on that subject is because it is the biggest risk facing the regulated sector.

I would say that, before the budget announcement of increased taxes, it already was. However, even more so now, with taxes rising in April this year and April next year. What we’re trying to do through our Spot the Difference game is raise awareness and educate customers about how to tell the difference between a licensed gaming site and the illegal market. 

How do you believe promoting positive stories from gambling to tackle stigmas around the practice could manifest going forwards?

I think one of the things that frustrates me is that there is something of a misguided narrative that all gambling is bad, and it’s a shameful activity that people shouldn’t admit to.

In actual fact, over 22 million people do so safely as part of their leisure or downtime every month in the UK. It’s been part of our British culture for centuries and hopefully it will continue. I think it’s really important that we show the fun side of betting and gaming

We are working on a consumer forum and some polling to just understand customers’ motivations, why they like the regulated sector, but also why they are worried about the illegal black market and what might be driving them there. I think differentiating ourselves from those who are basically cyber criminals that run illegal online casinos is a really important role for the BGC to play. 

What is our current understanding around why players in the UK may turn to the black market?

There’s been a variety of studies that have looked into that in more detail, and I think there are various drivers for customers. The Frontier Economics study from 2024 found that there were three equal reasons that people were using the black market. The first was because they wanted to remain anonymous. The second was that they wanted to avoid affordability and friction. The third was that they wanted to avoid any document checks. 

Now, obviously there’s some kind of similarity between those three reasons, but essentially people who feel like they’re being irritated out of the regulated market will then go to the illegal market. 

Similarly, if people have self-excluded themselves or been excluded from the regulated market, then they will find their way to the black market. One of the worrying things now, as a result of the increases in tax in the budget, is that customers will find the regulated sector a less attractive place to be, because what operators can offer is reduced and subsequently the players’ experience won’t be as good as it can be in the black market.

The Gambling Commission spoke today about potential new regulations around payments and crypto, in particular. What is the payment industry’s role in helping tackle the black market?

I think it’s twofold. There are a range of stakeholders that are currently facilitating the black market, one of which is payments, but to be fair to the payment providers, they’re not the only ones. 

However, payment providers shouldn’t allow money to be processed from illegal criminal sites. And there is an easy way around that in that they only process payments from a list of sites who are licensed by the Gambling Commission. 

In parallel, that’s only one part of the story because you can try to tackle the traditional payment methods, but actually if you do that, all you do is inflate the popularity of crypto payment methods in the black market. If we were to tackle both of those things in parallel, that would really help to reduce the oxygen of the black market.

What are your thoughts on helping regulate the bridge from fake money games for underage to real money gambling, which can lead to problem gambling for vulnerable individuals?

Learning lessons would be my key suggestion for other associated industries that you’re talking about. We have been regulated in the betting gaming sector for 20 years.

We have learnt a lot of lessons on how we can introduce voluntary restrictions, but also how to work with the government and the Gambling Commission to make sure that any rules and regulations they’re bringing in are proportionate and don’t have unintended consequences. We’d be very happy to have a conversation with other adjacent industries on this topic, if that would be helpful!