Standards body The Betting and Gaming Council has launched its first International Best Practice Guide, a vital new resource for online gaming operators and policymakers around the world.

The guide, commissioned by the BGC and compiled by leading professional services firm Alvarez and Marsal (A&M), sets out core objectives for policymakers, and the different approaches jurisdictions take to achieve them.

Drawing on lessons from around the world, it then highlights the benefits and disadvantages of those varying regulatory choices.

Over the last two decades the online sector has grown significantly, with just a handful of jurisdictions operating online gaming in 1994, to over 100 now.

While different policymakers take different approaches, this guide sets out the key policy objectives common to all regulators:

• High Channelisation: Ensuring that as much gaming as possible takes place in the regulated market.

• Consumer Protection: Including by protecting young people and the vulnerable through robust safer gambling measures.

• Preserving Consumer Choice: By maintaining competition.

• Keeping Gambling Crime Free: Including by ensuring sporting integrity.

• Raising Tax Revenue: Ensuring operators invest in the markets they operate in.

For the first time, this guide offers a single body of evidence to critically compare the wide variation in regulatory approaches to help inform decision making for policymakers.

The failure to balance the correct regulations can give rise to the growing, unsafe gambling black market, undermining policymaker’s objectives.

A recent separate study commissioned by the BGC revealed 1.5m people in the UK stake up to £4.3bn on the illegal gambling black market each year.

The BGC hope the document will provide a vital resource for policymakers in developing markets, as well as those revisiting existing regulations.

BGC CEO Grainne Hurst said: “For the first time, the BGC has brought together the lessons, both positive and negative, which have been learned by operators and regulators around the world when it comes to the online gaming sector.

“This sector will no doubt continue to grow internationally, offering huge potential benefits to existing markets and those which are currently developing.

“Through effective regulation of this new growth sector, governments can achieve their core priorities of raising tax, boosting growth and jobs, while delivering high standards for player protection.

“In the UK, we have seen that firsthand, where balanced regulations have created a sector which raises billions in tax and investment in the economy, while supporting tens of thousands of jobs.

“But the risk posed by the wrong regulatory balance can undermine that good work, and give a foothold to the growing unsafe, illegal gambling black market, which is an ever-present threat in the UK.

“We are proud that BGC members are now a genuine global success story and a Great British export – that is the prize when the right regulatory foundations deliver sustainable success.

“If you are a policymaker navigating this new growth sector, or an operator seeking to broaden your international footprint, then this guide is for you.”

Pierre Tournier, BGC International Director, added: “The online gaming market is a complex landscape involving a huge range of potential regulatory choices and outcomes.

“But for too long there has been a crucial evidence gap when those choices are considered by policymakers. Our ambition for this new guide is that it finally offers a solution to that problem.

“Drawing on the lessons from around the world, operators and policymakers, can take a global view of the pitfalls and benefits of different approaches, and make better policy decisions as a result.”

Adam Rivers, A&M’s head of Betting and Gaming in EMEA, said: “A&M are proud to have worked with the BGC on this important project which provides a new reference point and assessment of gambling regulation globally.

“Effective regulation plays an important role in ensuring the safe and effective functioning of gambling markets, supporting positive outcomes for regulators, operators and consumers.”

A&M’s Betting and Gaming practice consists of professionals acting across strategy, analytics, operational compliance, transformation, technology, M&A and tax.