Ain’t got all the facts, but I got a hunch: The UK Gambling Commission said it was determined to go ahead with the implementation of affordability checks – or what it insists should be called financial risk checks – despite the criticism leveled at its planned rollout by an advisory group member.

Noyes abatement: James Noyes was until recently part of the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group, set up by the government and the Gambling Commission to provide advice on the proposal as contained in the 2023 white paper on gambling.

• But in a resignation letter quoted in the Racing Post this week, Noyes said there was a “clearly unacceptable” schedule for risk checks rollout.
• He added that it was “astonishing” that the “controversial” checks were to be rolled out “before any meaningful – and independent – evaluation of this policy can be carried out.”

Ball of confusion: Noyes said the plan was for the new checks regime to be rubber-stamped by a Commission board meeting as soon as next week, May 21, adding he was “surprised” by the lack of discussion within the advisory group on their impact.

• “The government has a duty to ensure that its legislative proposals are evaluated in an adequate manner,” he wrote.
• “In the case of the Gambling Act review, and most notably financial risk assessments, this has not happened. Instead we have a situation where there is confusion.”
• The Commission said the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group was run by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), so it was not for the regulator to comment.

Miller’s tale: Going in to bat for the Commission at a conference hosted by law firm CMS in London on Tuesday this week was Tim Miller, the body’s executive director of research and policy.

• In response to questions on Noyes’ allegations, he was reported to have told the audience that “you can’t evaluate something until you have implemented it.”
• “Throughout we have had NatCen and others doing work to understand how that pilot has been developing, but you can’t properly evaluate something until it has actually been rolled out,” he added.
• “It’s the case with everything else in the white paper, you evaluate it once it’s there in the real world so you can understand it.”

Queasy does it: One conference-goer who spoke to C+M noted Miller appeared “distinctly uneasy” when asked whether the Commission, which is currently without a CEO, was even in a position to put forward a recommendation to its board on a go-live process for the checks.

• “We are not committed to any timetable for action,” a clearly rattled Miller told the audience.
• On the vexed question of demands for customers to produce payslips and bank statements to prove their means, Joanne Whittaker, CEO of Betfred, took issue with Miller’s assertion that there was in practice no such requirement.
• “That’s simply not true is it?” she stated pointedly.

Give it away now: Not least of the complaints leveled at the Commission by its critics is the money it has lavished on supposedly independent studies that have ended up making the case for the anti-gambling lobby.

• The most recent is a highly contentious study undertaken by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the University of Glasgow.
• That report, which claimed that gambling reforms would have a limited negative impact on the wider economy, was funded via the regulatory settlements mechanism employed by the Commission.
• In its yearly accounts, the regulator revealed the report cost £402k.
• “At a time when harm prevention charities are going to the wall, this looks particularly ill-judged,” said one source.