Compliance Updates
Seven Commissioners Appointed to the UK Gambling Commission
The Secretary of State has appointed seven Commissioners to the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).
Charles Counsell, Helen Dodds, Sheree Howard and Claudia Mortimore have been appointed for terms of five years. Lloydette Bai-Marrow, Helen Philips and David Rossington have been appointed for terms of four years.
Lloydette Bai-Marrow
Lloydette is an anti-corruption expert and economic crime lawyer. She is the Founding Partner of Parametric Global Consulting, an economic crime investigations consultancy.
Lloydette is the Chair of the Board of Spotlight on Corruption, a UK based anti-corruption charity, she sits on the Legal Panel for WhistleblowersUK and is a trustee for the Unite Foundation. She is a Member of the Conduct Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales.
Lloydette is a Senior Visiting Lecturer at the International Anti-Corruption Academy in Vienna, Austria. She is a Co-Founder and Director of the Black Women in Leadership Network (BWIL), a non-profit network committed to increasing the representation of black women in leadership and decision-making positions.
Charles Counsell OBE
Charles was Chief Executive Officer of The Pensions Regulator from April 2019 to March 2023. Prior to this he was CEO of the Money Advice Service and Executive Director of Automatic Enrolment at The Pensions Regulator.
As CEO of The Pensions Regulator, Charles developed the new corporate strategy to put the pension saver at the heart of the Regulator. He delivered their first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Climate Change strategies – both focused on driving change in the regulator and across the Pensions Sector.
Throughout his career, his roles have focused on setting up and delivering large change programmes requiring significant stakeholder relationship engagement: initially in the private sector and latterly in senior public sector appointments.
Helen Dodds OStJ
Helen Dodds is an international lawyer, consultant and board member. She is currently a board member of the Human Tissue Authority, a director and trustee of the St John’s Eye Hospital Group, a director of LegalUK, and an Honorary Senior Fellow of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. Prior to this, she was a board member of the London Court of International Arbitration.
She is a qualified (now non-practising) solicitor and in her executive career she was Global Head of Legal, Dispute Resolution at Standard Chartered Bank. She has a degree in Modern History from Oxford University.
Sheree Howard
Sheree has over 25 years’ experience in the UK financial services industry with knowledge of the process of regulation and a key focus on risk management, audit and controls. Sheree is currently the Executive Director of Risk and Compliance Oversight at the Financial Conduct Authority. She is a Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
Sheree has held roles in banking in areas of risk and compliance including Director of Advisory (Compliance), Commercial and Private Banking for the Royal Bank of Scotland; and Chief Risk Officer at Direct Line Group.
Sheree has been a Governor, including Chair, for more than 10 years of a maintained Special Needs School and has provided pro bono advice to a number of other charities.
Claudia Mortimore
Claudia has over 25 years’ experience of criminal law and regulation. She spent the first 10 years of her career working as a barrister then, after a career break to raise three children, prosecuted drugs, tax and money-laundering offences for the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office and fraudulent trading offences for the Department for Business.
Since 2013 Claudia has worked in senior positions in the Enforcement Division of the Financial Reporting Council, the body which regulates accountants, auditors and actuaries in the public interest and which sets the UK Corporate Governance and Stewardship Codes. Claudia has led major investigations into serious and complex audit and accountancy failures.
Claudia has a particular interest in Diversity and Inclusion, she has also played a key role in promoting the importance of mental health and well-being at the Financial Reporting Council.
Helen Phillips
Dr Helen Phillips is an experienced executive and non-executive, with a career spanning the public, private and not for profit sectors. Helen’s current non-executive appointments include Chair of NHS Professionals Ltd and Chair of the Chartered Insurance Institute. Helen is concluding a nine year term as Chair of Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
In 2015 she was appointed as a lay member of the Legal Services Board (LSB), she was appointed independent Chair in 2017, and served a six year term to 31 March 2023. She served as a non-executive director of Social Work England from 2018 to 2021. Helen has also held non-executive director roles in Higher Education and the schools sector. Previously Helen was Board Director of Yorkshire Water and Chair of Loop Customer Management Ltd, a Kelda Group subsidiary. Prior to that, her career as a regulator was as founding Chief Executive of Natural England and a Director of the Environment Agency.
Helen has a BSc in Zoology and a PhD in Environmental Science from University College Dublin. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Insurers.
David Rossington CB
David is a former senior civil servant. He has worked for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), including as Finance Director and acting Director General, and other Government departments including what is now the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities.
Since stopping full time work, he has been a member of the Advisory Committee on National Records and Archives and currently serves as its Deputy Chair. He is Treasurer and Deputy Chair of Stoll, a charity for veterans and Treasurer of Arts at the Old Fire Station, an Oxford community arts charity.
David holds a degree in History and French from Oxford, a Masters in Public Policy from the Kennedy School, Harvard University, and an economics MSc from Birkbeck College, London. David took an accountancy qualification while a civil servant, although is no longer in practice.
Compliance Updates
KSA Intensifies its Cooperation with Sports Associations to Combat Illegal Gambling Advertising
The Netherlands Gambling Authority (KSA) has intensified its collaboration with sports associations and clubs to combat illegal gambling advertising. Since the implementation of the ban on untargeted advertising, the KSA has been monitoring advertising by gambling companies more closely. To combat illegal advertising in sports, the KSA is working more closely with sports organisations.
Consultation with sports associations and clubs
After the ban on sports sponsorship came into effect, the KSA (Dutch Sports Federation) wrote to all sports associations about their responsibilities in this regard. The KSA found no significant violations by license holders after the ban was implemented. However, the regulator noted that confusion can arise, for example, when foreign clubs play with the logo of a legal sponsor in that country on their shirts. The KSA supports sports organisations where possible by explaining the rules and providing input on their application.
Positive examples
Several matches have shown that clubs are making efforts to correctly implement the ban. For example, Olympiacos Piraeus played in the CEV Cup match (volleyball) against Draisma Dynamo in Apeldoorn wearing shirts without the logo of a foreign gambling provider.
Consultations were held with the KNVB (Royal Dutch Football Association) before the match between AZ and Jagiellonia Białystok on December 18. The shirts displayed a logo from a score website. This logo differed significantly from that of the gambling provider, and the name was also different. Furthermore, no references to gambling services were found on the score website.
The KSA also sees matches in which players play with blank shirts or with shirts from its own foundation.
Extra supervision at international competitions
There were also situations where the rules were not met. Following matches like the Ajax vs. Internazionale and Go Ahead Eagles vs. Stuttgart matches, letters were sent to the clubs involved. A banner from an unlicensed gambling provider was visible during the Go Ahead Eagles vs. Stuttgart match. However, this gambling provider was not visible in the stadium itself or in the regular Dutch TV broadcast. For international matches, various image recordings are used, which can include virtual billboards. For the Dutch market, the gambling provider was replaced by an alternative advertisement. When distributing a summary in the Netherlands, part of the imagery in which the sponsor message was visible was mistakenly used. As a result, clubs and associations were again reminded of the importance of due care in international productions and summaries.
Continued attention
The KSA continues to consult with sports associations and clubs in the coming period and actively monitor compliance with the ban on untargeted advertising by gambling providers. Enforcement action will be taken where necessary. With this approach, the KSA contributes to a sports environment free of advertising for (illegal) gambling services.
The post KSA Intensifies its Cooperation with Sports Associations to Combat Illegal Gambling Advertising appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Compliance Updates
Ireland Minister Jim O’Callaghan Signs Order to Allow GRAI to Begin Issuing Licences
Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration, Jim O’Callaghan has signed an order to commence key aspects of the Gambling Regulation Act 2024 to allow the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland (GRAI) to begin issuing remote and in-person betting licences.
The signing of the commencement order, which comes into effect on Thursday, 5 February 2026, enables the Authority to start accepting and processing applications, and issuing licenses for remote and in-person betting operators. It also commences the necessary enforcement and oversight and complaints mechanisms that underpin the new licensing framework. In addition, the order commences those sections of the Act that amend and repeal existing legislation on the statute book. In particular, it will repeal the Totalisator Act 1929 and the Betting Act 1931.
Minister O’Callaghan said: “Today marks another important step towards replacing Ireland’s outdated gambling laws with a streamlined and simplified licensing framework. This reflects the nature of modern gambling and takes into account the harms associated with problem gambling, by providing safeguards to protect people from those harms, especially children.
“The Authority can issue licences for new entrants as soon as is feasible, licence remote operators from 1 July 2026 and in-person operators from 1 December 2026, when their existing licences, issued by the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, expire.
“The Act provides the Authority with the necessary enforcement powers to take appropriate and focused action where licensees fail to comply with licensing terms, conditions and regulations, and to deal with unlicensed operators, those operating without the correct licence, or those in contravention of the terms of a licence issued by the Authority.”
The post Ireland Minister Jim O’Callaghan Signs Order to Allow GRAI to Begin Issuing Licences appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
Compliance Updates
Austrian Supreme Court Says Loot Boxes Aren’t Gambling
The Supreme Court of Austria has ruled that loot boxes in Electronic Arts’ FIFA Ultimate Team do not count as gambling under the country’s Gambling Act. A group of plaintiffs had argued that EA’s randomised digital packs offering a chance to obtain rare footballers amounted to unlawful gambling, but the court disagreed.
In the decision, the judges clarified the definition of a game of chance as a “game in which the outcome depends solely or predominantly on chance.” While loot boxes involve a random allocation of items, the judges emphasised that players influence the outcome of the game itself through tactics, strategy and controller skills.
“The plaintiffs have failed to prove that the game in question is one in which the outcome depends exclusively or predominantly on chance,” the judgment states.
The post Austrian Supreme Court Says Loot Boxes Aren’t Gambling appeared first on Eastern European Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.
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