{"id":2723,"date":"2026-04-30T08:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T08:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/?p=2723"},"modified":"2026-05-06T08:10:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:10:20","slug":"scary-monsters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/bettingjobs-complianceandmore-partnerships\/scary-monsters\/","title":{"rendered":"Scary monsters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Keep me scared:<\/strong> UK Gambling Commission executive director Tim Miller has pushed back on \u201cill-informed\u201d criticism of financial checks, while signaling openness to crypto payments and a wider review of regulatory burden.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>At the Ethical Gambling Forum held in Leeds this week, Miller corrected what he characterized as widespread misinformation of financial risk checks.<\/li>\n<li>He also revealed pilot data that significantly outperforms the original White Paper projections.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Better than expected:<\/strong> The headline figures represent a substantial improvement on the previous assumptions. Less than 3% of active customer accounts would trigger any operator action under the proposals, with the Commission stressing that recommendations would be \u201cmindful of this important targeting of the measure at the highest spending accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Of that 3%, the pilot showed 97% would receive a frictionless assessment, well above the 80% the government had estimated.<\/li>\n<li>Only 0.1% of active accounts would require an assessment and be unable to receive one in a frictionless manner, compared to the 0.6% originally anticipated.<\/li>\n<li>Miller noted even this residual figure could be reduced by operators meeting existing obligations on customer identity verification at onboarding.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>You\u2019re toxic:<\/strong> The pilot also supported the underlying policy rationale, he claimed. Customers in the pilot cohort were two- to four-times more likely to have a debt management plan and two- to five-times more likely to have had a default in the last 12 months, than comparable consumers in the wider population.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A significant portion of Miller\u2019s remarks dismantled what he described as a debate that has become \u201cmore high-pitched, more toxic, somehow\u201d since the White Paper.<\/li>\n<li>He was unequivocal that the proposed thresholds \u201care not limits or caps on customer spend\u201d and \u201care not \u2018affordability checks\u2019 by a different name.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>He explicitly stated the piloted checks \u201cwill not even attempt to make an assessment of what each customer can afford to gamble.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Serves no purpose:<\/strong> Most significantly for operators, Miller delivered a clear message on documentation. If the checks are implemented, the Commission will issue guidance that operators \u201cshould not require consumers to provide documents to assess financial risk following a financial risk assessment.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He went further, confirming that \u201cfailing to request documents following a financial risk assessment would not be a reason for regulatory action.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>He added that doing so \u201cwould serve no legitimate regulatory purpose and consumers could rightly refuse to provide them.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>That\u2019s told them:<\/strong> This is a direct rebuke to current operator practice, which Miller called \u201coutdated, inconsistent and disproportionate,\u201d of asking consumers to share bank statements, a behavior he said \u201ccannot be right in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Miller stressed the Commission\u2019s board has not yet made a decision, with recommendations to be brought forward \u201cin the near future.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Group text:<\/strong> If implementation proceeds, the Commission has committed to working with the DCMS, industry operators and credit reference agencies through a joint implementation group to develop a proportionate plan and timetable.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Beyond financial checks, Miller confirmed that from July operators must immediately remove gaming machines if the Commission informs them the equipment was not manufactured, supplied or maintained under a technical operating license.<\/li>\n<li>The fuller consultation response is expected in the summer, with Miller signaling the Commission \u201crecognizes the potential financial costs of implementing some of the original proposals.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>It is a phrase likely welcomed by operators concerned about cumulative regulatory cost following last year\u2019s Budget tax changes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Hold your horses:<\/strong> In a notable opening, Miller revealed conversations with the Industry Forum about creating \u201ca way for cryptoassets to be more easily used as a consumer payment option\u201d for licensed gambling.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He also flagged a planned strategic review of regulatory burden, while conceding pointedly that on innovation proposals, \u201cit\u2019s fair to say that there hasn\u2019t been a stampede so far.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/complianceandmore.substack.com\/p\/scary-monsters\">Click here to read the FULL edition!<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keep me scared: UK Gambling Commission executive director Tim Miller has pushed back on \u201cill-informed\u201d criticism of financial checks, while signaling openness to crypto payments and a wider review of regulatory burden. At the Ethical Gambling Forum held in Leeds this week, Miller corrected what he characterized as widespread misinformation of financial risk checks. He&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bettingjobs-complianceandmore-partnerships"],"acf":[],"post_author_name":"","post_authors_type":"","post_authors_from_team_members":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2723"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2727,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2723\/revisions\/2727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bettingjobs.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}