You’ll take the high Rhodes: Critics have leapt on the news that ex-UK Gambling Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes is to join top figures from gambling sector legal outfit Harris Hagan in a new strategic advisory firm called Hawkbridge as principal consultant.

• And I’ll take the low: James Noyes, an arch Commission critic and senior fellow at the Social Market Foundation, said on X “the revolving door carries on.”
• “It stinks,” one senior industry consultant told C+M yesterday.

The names above the door: Rhodes joins Bahar Alaeddini, John Hagan and David Whyte from Harris Hagan, alongside Andy Bentley, previously with Genting, Merkur and Push Gaming, at the new firm.

• Alaeddini told C+M that “robust safeguards were in place” in relation to Rhodes’ appointment, and “we will continue to follow due process to manage any potential conflicts of interest.”

Conflict avoidance: The Commission also defended the move, suggesting Rhodes had complied with his obligations under its employee code of conduct to “ensure that the risk of conflicts of interest has been considered at the earliest opportunity.”

• “We are satisfied that appropriate mitigations are in place to manage and reduce the risk of any actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” the Commission spokesperson added.

Doors of perception: But Noyes was left unimpressed by Rhodes’ move into consultancy. “In Westminster, a revolving door continues to exist whereby regulators, legislators, businesses and journalists exchange jobs between each other in a self-enriching merry-go-round which has become accepted as normal.”

• “Everyone knows it is happening yet few people speak out against it because, if they do, they risk being ostracised from the cosy little club and find that their job options suddenly become limited,” he added.
• “And who would be brave enough to do that when they have mouths to feed? And so it goes on.”

Hubris? I hardly know her: In a press release announcing the news, Rhodes boasted that there has “rarely been a single source of regulatory, commercial and operational advice at such a senior and experienced level in the sector.”

• Alaeddini said Hawkbridge would give the sector “sharp, pragmatic counsel on the questions that sit above legal advice and beyond commercial diligence.”

Check the guy’s track record: During Rhodes’ five years at the Commission, he played a part in the implementation of the Gambling Act Review.

• More controversially, he also drove the introduction of the still-contested Gambling Survey of Great Britain.
• Rhodes and the Commission came under fire for dismissing fears over the experimental nature of the dataset.
• He was also in charge when the Commission buried a survey that contradicted some of its own claims with regard to affordability measures.

Hip priest: As one sector source summed up his time at the Commission, Rhodes “oversaw the destabilization of the licensed market, the mushrooming of the unlicensed market and under his watch the Commission funded anti-gambling lobbying.”

• On social: Then there was this reaction on X. And this on LinkedIn. And Geoff Banks had this to say.

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