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Seven Commissioners Appointed to the UK Gambling Commission

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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.

Andreas Ottenschläger

Austria: Draft bill entered parliamentary consultation

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Background

Austria’s governing coalition — ÖVP, SPÖ and NEOS — has agreed a sweeping overhaul of the Gambling Act. The draft bill entered parliamentary consultation on, Monday 29 June 2026. Lead negotiators Andreas Ottenschläger (ÖVP), Jan Krainer (SPÖ) and Christoph Pramhofer (NEOS) call it the biggest reform of the law in 26 years. Two pillars: tougher player protection, and a ground-up rewrite of online licensing.

Timing

No formal Council of Ministers resolution is public yet. What is public: the draft amendments went into parliamentary consultation today. Next comes TRIS — the draft must be notified to the European Commission, says Vienna-based gambling lawyer Arthur Stadler, triggering a standstill of at least three months before parliament can hold a final vote. Extensions are possible.

Cooling-off / non-offering period

The bad-actor clause has three teeth: retroactive tax payment, settlement of player claims, and a non-offering period. On the last point: Under the draft, operators must clear that freeze properly: from 1 January 2027 until the licence is actually granted, they have to shut down their existing unlicensed online offering. Fail to comply, and the penalty escalates fast: any operator that doesn’t observe the cooling-off phase faces an 18-month lock-out from licensing altogether. Stadler’s math: That’s a minimum nine-month freeze, 1 January to end-September 2027 at least depending when the licenses are awarded individually. It looks like that first license might be granted to those new market entrants adopting such early blackout, timewise landing exactly after the moment when Austrian Lotteries’ win2day concession expires on 30 September 2027.

The bad-actor clause has three teeth: retroactive tax payment, settlement of player claims, and a non-offering period. On the last point: Under the draft, operators must clear that freeze properly: From 1 January 2027 until the licence is actually granted, they have to shut down their existing unlicensed online offering. Fail to comply, and the penalty escalates fast: any operator that doesn’t observe the cooling-off phase faces an 18-month lock-out from licensing altogether. Stadler’s math: the legislator has, without saying so explicitly, built in an incentive structure. The floor is a nine-month freeze — 1 January through end-September 2027 — though actual length depends on when individual licences get awarded. The likely sequencing: new entrants who front-load the blackout early position themselves first in line, with awards landing right after Austrian Lotteries’ win2day concession expires on 30 September 2027.

Contradiction

Stadler sees a basic contradiction baked into the package. “Two of the three major elements work against each other. If the Finance Ministry wants to maximise retroactive tax recovery, a mandatory blackout period hands you a tax base of zero for that exact stretch. You can’t optimise for both. Operators are left asking whether the real goal is revenue or exclusion.”

Austria as a high-tax jurisdiction

Beyond the clearance condition — and an unresolved question of whether repaid player amounts can be offset against ongoing tax liabilities — sits the headline number: a 45% GGR tax rate. That puts Austria in elite company, in the same bracket as the UK (40% from April 2026) and the Netherlands (37.8%). “It’s a top-of-the-table tax rate for a market that doesn’t even have a functioning licensed channel yet,” Stadler says. But the tax rate alone doesn’t tell the whole story, he adds. “Even at 45% GGR, whether Austria actually functions as a licensed market depends on the regulatory mix around it (player protection rules, advertising limits, deposit and stake caps, AML obligations and more). You have to look at the framework as a whole and ask whether it’s actually attractive enough for new entrants. That’s the kind of detail that decides whether the channelisation target is achievable.”

 

Author: Arthur Stadler | STADLER PARTNER

The post Austria: Draft bill entered parliamentary consultation appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

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Compliance Updates

PlayCity Partners with Streaming Platform Kick to Block Illegal Gambling Ads

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PlayCity, the state agency overseeing the gambling and lottery sector in Ukraine, has partnered with streaming platform Kick to further accelerate the blocking of illegal gambling ads on the platform.

“We are directly providing Kick’s headquarters with a list of channels that violate legislation and illegally advertise gambling,” PlayCity said.

The agency said that the first two channels on the platform were blocked during the past week.

In addition, at the agency’s request, access was restricted last week to 37 accounts across TikTok, Instagram, Twitch and Kick, with the blocked accounts having a combined audience of more than 895,000 users.

Specifically, access was restricted to 20 TikTok accounts with 473,000 followers, 11 Instagram accounts with 314,000 followers, four Twitch channels with 107,000 followers, and two Kick channels with 1200 followers.

“Blocking such content helps quickly stop the recruitment of users into gambling through illegal advertising campaigns,” PlayCity said.

The post PlayCity Partners with Streaming Platform Kick to Block Illegal Gambling Ads appeared first on EE Gaming | Global iGaming & Tech Intelligence Hub.

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Compliance Updates

KSA – Target for Gambling Tax Increase Not Achieved: Expected Tax Revenues Turn Out Lower

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The recent increase in the Dutch gambling tax has failed to achieve its primary financial objectives. This is evident from the “monitor of the effects of the increase in gambling tax,” conducted by the Ministry of Finance and the Dutch Gaming Authority. As of January 1, 2025, the gambling tax was increased from 30.5% to 34.2%, and in 2026 the rate was further raised to 37.8%. The aim of this increase was to raise government revenue. The monitor shows that this goal is not being achieved as expected: the projected tax revenues turned out lower.

The tax increase was expected to yield an additional €108 million in 2025 compared to the previous year, and €216 million in 2026. However, the monitor shows that these amounts are turning out much lower: an additional €2 million was collected in 2025, and €57 million in 2026. Moreover, the tax increase is causing a decrease in revenue from state participations, resulting in even lower additional revenue for the State.

The fact that tax revenues are lower is due to several developments. In the years measured, various measures were taken to better protect players, causing the gross gaming result (GSR) of providers to decrease. This leads to a decrease in the tax base, the amount on which tax must be paid. The tariff increase itself may also have led to a decrease in the tax base, for example because physical establishments of gambling companies were closed in the interest of profitability.

The monitor also examined the effects on market size, channeling, and contributions to charities and sports. It is not possible to draw conclusions regarding this, as multiple changes occurred simultaneously. For instance, the aforementioned rules to better protect players and various advertising restrictions have also impacted the gambling market.

The post KSA – Target for Gambling Tax Increase Not Achieved: Expected Tax Revenues Turn Out Lower appeared first on Americas iGaming & Sports Betting News.

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