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The new British gambling minister said she is reviewing the controversial practice of online gambling operators who use “white label” arrangements to market to gambling licensees outside the country.
Fiona Twycross, a member of the House of Lords named to the post in July, said she is talking to the industry and Gambling Commission to gather “evidence of their prevalence and impact”.
“If further action is needed, we will take it”, she said.
Twycross was among the speakers yesterday (December 4) at the annual conference in London by GambleAware, the industry-funded charity.
She got some pushback from panelists who called for a ban on advertising gambling when she indicated a desire for the industry to “take the initiative” to ensure gambling advertising is “appropriate, responsible and does not exacerbate harm.”
However, the minister mentioned concerns about white-label operators, without outlining the controversies surrounding the practice, in which companies offer the use of their British gambling licence on a B2B basis to their clients.
TGP Europe, based in the Isle of Man, 32 domain names under its gambling licence, some inactive.
Some of TGP’s clients include controversial names such as Stake.com, which offers Canadian rapper Drake playing slots on Kick streaming platform, or Asia-facing firms that use marketing through Premier League teams to reach audiences in China and other countries where online gambling is illegal.
In 2023, it got a £316,000 fine from the commission for violating anti-money laundering and social-responsibility codes.
The conference comes as UK gambling regulation is poised for change.
Last month, the government announced plans to implement a mandatory gambling levy of up to 1.1 percent, as well as impose £5 stake limits on online slots, with £2 stakes set for those under the age of 25. No date was set for launch.
The government-imposed levy means the UK will be transitioning from a prevention and treatment sector centered on non-profit, non-governmental organisations, including the industry-funded GambleAware to government-funded agencies.
The research will be under the direction of UK Research and Innovation, while NHS England, along with comparable bodies in Scotland and Wales, will direct treatment.
The new UK gambling commissioner said the government-backed reforms were outlined in the white paper, the policy document produced in 2023 by the previous, Conservative government.
She touted the 90,000 gambling jobs, plus the £3.4bn in tax money generated last year by the industry, with a 5.7 percent gain in gross gambling yield from non-lottery gambling.
That praise led to some grumbling from panelists, who objected to the minister’s view that “close monitoring” of industry and sports codes, along with the industry working with government, sports bodies, academics and harm-prevention experts, can rein in advertising levels viewed as excessive.
Twycross had also said the current government backs the gambling white paper produced by the previous, Conservative Party-led government, which did not recommend banning advertising because there was no clear link between gambling advertising and harm.
Marketing researcher Raffaello Rossi said such links were deemed sufficient by Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, all of which have imposed restrictions on gambling ads.
He cited his University of Bristol which found that gambling messages including logos nearly tripled in the opening weekend of Premier League matches this year, compared to last.
“In my opinion, the code is simply designed not to work”, he told the audience. “No one is really enforcing it”.
Alexia Clifford of GambleAware said current industry-led warning messages lack clarity and consistency.
She cited research sponsored by the group which suggests that direct messages such as “Gambling can be addictive”, or “Gambling comes at a cost”, delivered in a section clearly separated from an ad would be much more effective.
But a Gambling Commission executive director, Tim Miller, defended the regulator’s goal of listening to a variety of voices, ranging from those with lived experience of gambling harm to gamblers who have not experienced harm, to the industry itself.
While the industry “should not be in a position to make decisions” about research, treatment, and support services, it can offer value as part of a system designed with “transparency and openness”, he said.
“Our regulations increasingly require operators to ‘Know Your Customer’ for both social responsibility and anti-money laundering purposes”, he said.
“If we consider there is value in gambling companies building up such a knowledge base on consumers for harm prevention purposes, then why would we want to exclude that knowledge from informing a wider system that has harm prevention as a core aim?” Miller said.
