IAGA Webinar - Andrew Rhodes speech
16 January 2025
This speech was delivered by chief executive Andrew Rhodes at the IAGA webinar, Setting the Gambling Agenda for 2025: a less political year? on 15 January 2025.
Thank you John for that introduction. And thank you everyone for joining us today and to International Association of Gaming Advisors (IAGA) for arranging today’s session. IAGA have of course posed the question in today’s title as to whether 2025 will be a less political year. I think it is a great question and perhaps part of that is because the topic of gambling has been so political and so fought over in recent years, it is sometimes hard to imagine it might not be like that.
I do not plan to speak for very long here as I think the panel discussion is the most important part, but it is probably helpful if I do set out some context for the year we are going into, which the three of us spoke about in advance.
When we look at the latest industry statistics, there are some things which stand out as we go into 2025. The first I would mention is that for the first time large society lottery sales have passed the £1 billion mark, as they continue to grow. This will undoubtedly be a consideration around the National Lottery, which has seen some reductions too. As an aside to this, we are seeing the growth of participation in prize draws now sitting a little behind betting as an activity, and well ahead of a number of other activities.
Gross Gambling Yield (GGY) has grown to its highest ever level and GGY from horseracing is also at its highest recorded level. This brings the vexed question of what happens if you adjust for inflation and what we know there is if you did adjust for inflation then the relative value of gambling has fallen in recent years. That said, gambling as an industry has often weathered economic downturns of any kind reasonably well, but there isn’t very much evidence to suggest that if someone typically favours a £10, or £100 bet that becomes an £11 or £110 bet if inflation is running at 10 percent. So, as parts of the industry face higher costs, they will not necessarily see an increase in staking as a result – there is little reason why they would. This presents an economic challenge.
Participation remains steady at just under half the adult population engaging with some form of gambling on a regular basis. So, if participation remains pretty static and at what is a high level, then if some products grow it will be at the ‘expense’, if I can put it that way, of other products.
The debate around gambling in 2025 and beyond may or may not be less political, but I do not imagine it will be a great deal easier. From my perspective, I think we have a number of blocs of opinion, broadly speaking, where there is severe disagreement and often antipathy at play. Sometimes, what these different groups feel should happen conflicts with what another group wants.
As the Statutory Levy, Ombudsman and various other changes get nearer, I do wonder whether the frequent ‘absolutism’ we often see in the commentary from various groups will continue. This also leads into debates about statistics and the evidence base and there is a risk that positions are so entrenched and so reductive the actual point is missed altogether. During the next year, we should be focussed on the broader evidence base and what we are seeing from multiple different sources rather than trying to argue whether a single number is right or wrong or perfect or imperfect. Nobody should assume the regulation of the gambling industry should be reduced to a single number and the Gambling Commission certainly does not think that.
A further topic that has had its turn as a political, with a small ‘p’, is football illegal gambling. The Commission has invested in this area in recent years and we have had success in disrupting a lot of illegal activity. Everyone should accept there has always been an illegal market present and much as different people want to debate the size and value of it, the reality is we need to understand the flow into it and why that happens, as well as preventing its ability to operate at scale. We have been clear that we have focussed our efforts on upstream disruption as much as possible and much as I will not go into detail, it was announced by Evolution that they are subject to a review of their licence as a result of supplying games to illegal operators.
I have said before that everyone in the legitimate industry should undertake their own due-diligence that their suppliers and partners are not engaged in unlicensed activity facing in to the UK. Some have interpreted my remarks here as meaning I think the industry should be policing this rather than the regulator. Actually, I do not understand why anyone in the licenced industry would want to be in business with a company that is supporting illegal competition – it makes no sense to me at all and would suggest the illegal market is not the issue some suggest, if this was deemed acceptable. My deeper point though is as we enter 2025, we are continuing to use our new capabilities around covert test purchasing and other investigative tools to identify those who are assisting illegal operators, as well as targeting those illegal operators directly. If the Commission feels it is necessary to suspend or revoke the licence of any operator or supplier, then their activity ceases immediately. Whatever they are supplying you with, stops – immediately. So, I would say that anyone who is reliant on a third party needs to be comfortable they are not likely to face that risk and if you think you are, I would be doing something about that now.
The last thing I’ll say in these brief remarks is that whether the year is more or less political might well be dictated by the reality that at any time something can happen that captures the attention of politicians, the media, campaigners, advocates or the industry itself. Wherever there is risk, we know there will be difficult stories and some of those will be very difficult stories. It is risk-based regulation, not no-risk regulation, and even outside of regulated areas, there will be stories that understandably provoke a reaction. In gambling, there is a coming together of product, person and place and whilst the vast majority of the 22.5 million or so people who engage with gambling on a regular basis will do so without issue, that will not be true for everyone and much as there have been huge strides forward, that combination of factors and what might happen is not necessarily predictable.
Last updated: 16 January 2025
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