Integrity panel: Commission welcomes Parry’s report
Press release
Date: 1
February 2010
The Gambling Commission today welcomed the package of
recommendations from the integrity expert panel, chaired by Rick
Parry. The Commission stands ready to play its part in
implementing the recommendations and looks forward to working with
its partners in the sports and betting industries to do this once
the package is endorsed by the Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe.
The Commission’s support comes as the Minister considers the
panel’s recommendations for tackling the risk to the integrity of
sport. At the time the panel, which included the Commission’s
Director of Regulation, Nick Tofiluk, and Commissioner, Ben Gunn,
an integrity expert, was launched last June, Commission Chairman
Brian Pomeroy said:
“By acting together against the threat to integrity, the betting
industry, sports bodies, players and their representatives, police
forces, the Gambling Commission and others can achieve much more
than any of us alone."
Underlining that commitment to cooperation in the light of the
report’s publication, Pomeroy today added:
“We warmly welcome this report. It embodies the joint working
with the betting industry and sports bodies that we have always
envisaged necessary to protect betting integrity.
“The Commission stands ready to establish a new sports betting
intelligence unit by enhancing its existing intelligence capacity
in Birmingham. This will enable the Commission not only to
pursue criminal investigations more effectively but also to support
sports bodies and the betting industry more effectively with
intelligence in their efforts to detect and prevent sports betting
corruption.”
Ends
Notes to editors
The Gambling Commission
- 1. The Gambling Commission (the Commission) regulates gambling
in the public interest. It does so by keeping crime out of
gambling, by ensuring that gambling is conducted fairly and openly,
and by protecting children and vulnerable people from being harmed
or exploited by gambling. The Commission also provides independent
advice to government on gambling in Britain.
- 2. The Commission is responsible for licensing and regulating
all gambling in Great Britain other than the National Lottery and
spread betting, which are the responsibility of the National
Lottery Commission and the Financial Services Authority (FSA)
respectively.
- 3. The Commission licenses betting operators and licensees
must adhere to the Commission’s licence conditions and codes of
practice. Licence condition 15.1 requires betting operators
to provide information regarding suspicious activity to the
Commission or in some cases the relevant sports governing
body.
- 4. Cheating is an offence under section 42 of the Gambling Act
and the Commission has powers to void bets, or to temporarily stop
winnings being paid out (by issuing an interim moratorium) in
certain circumstances.
- 5.
Letter from Brian Pomeroy on sports betting integrity panel report
- February 2010
- 6. More information on the Commission’s approach to betting
integrity can be found in the Commission’s
Betting integrity: policy position paper - March 2009.
Further information
- Further information is available from the Commission's website
at: www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk.
- You can also call John Travers on (0121) 230 6700, (07852)
124624 or email him via communications@gamblingcommission.gov.uk.