In the United Kingdom, the Gambling Commission has announced it intends to closely monitor and evaluate changes to the nation’s gambling regulations as a part of the ongoing review of governing legislation.

April saw the administration of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak propose a set of measures to amend the all-encompassing Gambling Act so as to help reduce the country’s rates of problem gambling. 

These changes will update legislation that hasn’t changed since 2005 and include a statutory levy on betting firms including casino sites, tighter financial affordability checks for at-risk punters and the imposition of online casino stake limits for gamblers under the age of 25.

Objective Attitude

David Taylor serves as the Head of Evidence Assurance and Evaluation for the Gambling Commission, and he declared his organisation aims to take a ‘proportionate approach’ in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport towards monitoring and evaluating any changes, which could go into effect as soon as the summer. 

The regulator also stated this course is necessary ‘given the number and scale of the possible changes’ so as to determine if they are being delivered effectively and have achieved their intended outcomes and impacts.

The United Kingdom is home to approximately 67 million people and Taylor asserted the Gambling Commission’s rolling assessment is to work towards identifying ‘any unintended consequences’ while simultaneously learning the best ways of implementing potential future policy modifications.

“The outcomes and impacts of some measures that are taken forward will need to be evaluated individually to explore whether each delivers the expected changes both for consumers and industry,” Taylor said. “They should also be evaluated as a package to understand the overall effectiveness of the review, consultation processes, and implementation of the measures decided on following consultation.”

He pronounced all of this ‘important’ as the changes span ‘a range of diverse topics’ with planning for how the upcoming appraisal is to be conducted ‘already well underway’.

Positive Partnership

 As part of this process, the Gambling Commission explained it has commissioned the National Centre for Social Research to design a framework laying out process and impact evaluation options. 

The regulator detailed the not-for-profit social research enterprise is to propose ways of conducting assessments while designating the data required for effective monitoring and evaluation of any consequences.

“It is possible that this could include identifying opportunities for conducting evaluation trials once final policy positions and implementation dates are decided upon following the consultation process,” Taylor said. “We’ll continue to provide details of our evaluation approach through policy consultations, consultation response documents, and through publishing other updates.”