British Gambling Commission pledges to release full Financial Risk Assessments evidence

The Gambling Commission has responded to questions on FRAs raised by a parliamentary committee.

UK.- The British Gambling Commission has pledged to release the full evidence, data and methodology justifying its decision to go ahead with controversial Financial Risk Assessments for gambling (FRAs). In the regulator’s response to questions posed by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, acting CEO Sarah Gardner said the details would be published in the autumn.

The regulator announced last month that FRAs will be introduced in a two-stage process. The first stage will see assessments carried out by the largest gambling operators in cases where there is a £5,000 net deposit in a rolling 24-hour period. In a second phase, FRAs will be obligatory for over 25s with net deposits exceeding £1,000 in a rolling 24-hour period or £3,000 over a rolling 90-day period. For those aged under 25, these thresholds will be £750 or £2,000 respectively.

The committee had asked the Gambling Commission to address concerns raised by stakeholders in the gambling and horseracing sector. As well as concerns about the proposal itself, critics had questioned why the regulator made the decision to implement the checks before releasing all of its evidence following last year’s pilot project.

In Gardner’s response, she said the reason for this was the regulator’s timetable for implementation as it wanted to hold consultations with implementation groups over the summer. Those groups include participation from gambling operators and credit reference agencies.

“We plan to issue the consultation response in the autumn which will set out this information, consistent with our usual practice of explaining our decisions in full,” Gardner said. “The reason, in this case, why we did not publish the consultation response when we announced a decision to proceed relates to the timetable for implementation. 

“We think it is important to ensure, in relation to decisions on the way FRAs will be implemented, that our consultation response is informed by discussions with stakeholders and particularly by discussions with the implementation groups that we are currently establishing.”

The committee had also raised questions about claims from the racing industry that its stakeholders had been excluded from communication. The British Horseracing Authority has been one of the biggest critics of FRAs, arguing that they could cause discourage high-spending horse bettors.

The Gambling Commission has confirmed that the horse racing industry will not be part of the implementation groups since it will not be involved in the implementation of the measure, but Gardner said the regulator would engage with the racing sector outside of these groups through separate individual meetings.

“Recognising the symbiotic relationship between racing and betting, and our shared interests on a range of issues such as integrity and tackling illegal gambling, we remain committed to constructive engagement with racing stakeholders,” Gardner said.