A shambles
UK Gambling Commission under fire over rushed checks rollout
UKGC executive director Tim Miller faces questions over timing of rollout.
In +More: Gov. Stitt nixes sweeps bill in Oklahoma.
Tribes lawyer up: New Mexico tribes sue Kalshi in federal court.
FATF gives Singapore a pat on the back for clean casinos.
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Carry on regardless
Ain’t got all the facts, but I got a hunch: The UK Gambling Commission said it was determined to go ahead with the implementation of affordability checks – or what it insists should be called financial risk checks – despite the criticism leveled at its planned rollout by an advisory group member.
Noyes abatement: James Noyes was until recently part of the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group, set up by the government and the Gambling Commission to provide advice on the proposal as contained in the 2023 white paper on gambling.
But in a resignation letter quoted in the Racing Post this week, Noyes said there was a “clearly unacceptable” schedule for risk checks rollout.
He added that it was “astonishing” that the “controversial” checks were to be rolled out “before any meaningful – and independent – evaluation of this policy can be carried out.”
Ball of confusion: Noyes said the plan was for the new checks regime to be rubber-stamped by a Commission board meeting as soon as next week, May 21, adding he was “surprised” by the lack of discussion within the advisory group on their impact.
“The government has a duty to ensure that its legislative proposals are evaluated in an adequate manner,” he wrote.
“In the case of the Gambling Act review, and most notably financial risk assessments, this has not happened. Instead we have a situation where there is confusion.”
The Commission said the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group was run by the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), so it was not for the regulator to comment.
Miller’s tale: Going in to bat for the Commission at a conference hosted by law firm CMS in London on Tuesday this week was Tim Miller, the body’s executive director of research and policy.
In response to questions on Noyes’ allegations, he was reported to have told the audience that “you can’t evaluate something until you have implemented it.”
“Throughout we have had NatCen and others doing work to understand how that pilot has been developing, but you can’t properly evaluate something until it has actually been rolled out,” he added.
“It’s the case with everything else in the white paper, you evaluate it once it’s there in the real world so you can understand it.”
Queasy does it: One conference-goer who spoke to C+M noted Miller appeared “distinctly uneasy” when asked whether the Commission, which is currently without a CEO, was even in a position to put forward a recommendation to its board on a go-live process for the checks.
“We are not committed to any timetable for action,” a clearly rattled Miller told the audience.
On the vexed question of demands for customers to produce payslips and bank statements to prove their means, Joanne Whittaker, CEO of Betfred, took issue with Miller’s assertion that there was in practice no such requirement.
“That’s simply not true is it?” she stated pointedly.
Give it away now: Not least of the complaints leveled at the Commission by its critics is the money it has lavished on supposedly independent studies that have ended up making the case for the anti-gambling lobby.
The most recent is a highly contentious study undertaken by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the University of Glasgow.
That report, which claimed that gambling reforms would have a limited negative impact on the wider economy, was funded via the regulatory settlements mechanism employed by the Commission.
In its yearly accounts, the regulator revealed the report cost £402k.
“At a time when harm prevention charities are going to the wall, this looks particularly ill-judged,” said one source.
Fresh off the back of our U.S. focused webinar “Beyond the Month Webinar 2026: The Future of Player Protection in the US: Trends, Innovations, and Challenges”, the Mindway AI team will be attending some key upcoming North American events.
University of Nevada-Las Vegas Gambling & Risk Taking Conference, Las Vegas, May 26-28
International Association of Gaming Advisors (IAGA) International Gaming Summit, Florida, June 2-4
SBC Summit Americas, Florida, June 9-11
We look forward to connecting with industry leaders at these events. Drop us a message to arrange a meeting contact@mindway.ai
+More
The American Gaming Association said commercial gaming revenue reached a record $78.6bn in 2025, up 9.1% YoY, with 34 of 38 states and Washington, DC setting annual highs. The industry also generated $17.9bn in tax revenue, up 12.3%.
Oklahoma: Gov. Kevin Stitt vetoed legislation that would have banned online sweepstakes casinos despite the measure passing both chambers of the state legislature. SB 1589 sought to expand the state criminal code to cover sweepstakes operators, suppliers, affiliates and geolocation providers. Lawmakers can still override the veto before the legislative session ends May 29.
France: L’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) has urged licensed operators to strengthen responsible-gambling controls after a new regulator-developed algorithm found that around 600,000 players, or 8.7% of the player base, were “highly likely” to be gambling excessively in the second half of 2025. The ANJ said that cohort generated €1.2bn in gross gaming revenue, equivalent to 60% of total GGR.
Denmark: EvenBet Gaming has secured a five-year license from the Danish Gambling Authority, allowing it to supply online poker and casino software to regulated operators in the country. The approval covers products including Spins Poker and follows the company’s recent launch of its own aggregation platform as it expands beyond poker.
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Senior Compliance Professional – Cardiff
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Tribes lawyer up
When two four tribes go to war: Four Native American tribes in New Mexico have sued Kalshi in federal court, alleging the prediction market platform is illegally offering sports betting on tribal lands in breach of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA).
Days after a Wisconsin court said the Ho-Chunk Nation could sue Kalshi, the Mescalero Apache Tribe, Pueblo of Isleta, Pueblo of Pojoaque and Pueblo of Sandia filed their own complaint, which underlined: “Under IGRA, Indian tribes regulate all gaming on their Indian lands.”
The suit says Kalshi’s sports markets are being offered on tribal lands, including to people under 21, even though each tribe prohibits gaming by those under that age.
The tribes are not seeking a fixed damages figure, but want Kalshi to pay for each violation of tribal law under the Mescalero ordinance, which provides for civil fines of $5,000 per day, per violation, plus punitive damages.
Burn the house down: The complaint rejects two of the industry’s main defenses. It said the existence or absence of a traditional “house” is irrelevant under IGRA to whether conduct qualifies as gaming.
It also said server location does not answer the question if the user is physically on tribal land while placing sports trades through the Kalshi app.
The tribes also rejected Kalshi’s wider preemption argument of federal protection under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), stating: “The CEA does not abrogate, repeal, or limit IGRA or tribal gaming authority or ordinances, since it does not reference them or even use the words ‘Indian’ or ‘tribe.’”
The tribes claim Kalshi is violating state-style gambling rules and running into a separate federal and tribal regime with its own authority.
Growing pains: The New Mexico action is the third tribal lawsuit brought against Kalshi, following earlier cases in California and Wisconsin.
In Wisconsin, a judge held that the tribe could pursue its IGRA claim under strict laws to ensure “Indian tribes have the exclusive right to regulate gaming activity on Indian lands.”
Kalshi declined to comment on the New Mexico case. Representatives for the tribes did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Just my imagination running away with me: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Michael Selig continues to argue that the federal agency has exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets amid state challenges to shut sports contracts down.
The CFTC yesterday filed an amicus brief backing Kalshi in its appeal against Ohio over the legality of sports event contracts.
Selig urged the Sixth Circuit to overturn a district court ruling denying Kalshi an injunction, reiterating the agency’s claim of exclusive jurisdiction over prediction markets.
Selig said last month that the CFTC “regularly” meets with tribal leaders and that tribes are “certainly a constituency we care a lot about and want to make sure we’re hearing their views.”
James Siva of the California Nations Indian Gaming Association said after speaking with Selig on a Zoom call that the chair “fully” believes the CFTC has exclusive jurisdiction, and that he used the phrase “exclusive authority” several times.
FATF’s Singapore verdict
Upgraded: The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) fifth-round Mutual Evaluation of Singapore, jointly published with the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering at the start of this month, delivered a result of which the city-state can be proud.
Singapore has been upgraded from enhanced follow-up to regular follow-up, its best-ever FATF monitoring outcome.
The city-state achieved substantial effectiveness ratings on seven of the 11 immediate outcomes.
We got this: For the gambling sector specifically, the assessment is unambiguously positive. The Gambling Regulatory Authority was credited with a high-level understanding of AML/CTF risks and stringent supervision of Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.
Operators were found to have implemented robust customer due diligence, identity verification and transaction monitoring.
Authorities conducted 16 examinations of casino operators between 2020 and 2024, and nine warnings and six fines totaling around S$2.7m ($2.1m) were imposed.
Keep ’em peeled: Still, the FATF’s headline finding was that fraud, particularly scams and cyber-enabled fraud, is Singapore’s most prominent money laundering threat, with corruption; organized crime, including illegal gambling; and tax crimes rounding out the predicate offenses.
The 2023 S$3bn laundering case looms large in the report, and FATF was pointed: fines imposed on nine financial institutions following that scandal were “too low.”
Equally striking, only 682 of 11,189 money laundering investigations led to prosecution, a conversion rate well below 10%.
The volume was overwhelmingly driven by victim-led cyber-fraud complaints rather than strategic disruption of transnational syndicates.
Beneficial ownership transparency was rated only moderately effective.
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Australian gambling reforms
Murphy’s law: The Australian government has formally accepted the key findings of the 2023 Murphy Report parliamentary inquiry into online gambling, announcing a package of 31 national reforms focused primarily on advertising restrictions.
The measures are set to commence on January 1, 2027, subject to legislation.
It follows statistics that show Australians lost over A$32bn ($23.2bn) on legal gambling in 2023-24.
At a per capita level, this translates into the highest losses globally at roughly A$1,521 per adult.
Reducers: Rather than imposing the blanket advertising ban originally proposed by the late MP Peta Murphy, the government opted for strict harm-reduction measures. These include banning wagering ads during live sports broadcasts on free-to-air TV between 6am and 8.30pm.
Meanwhile, ads will be capped at three per hour per channel in restricted timeslots.
A prohibition on ads at sports venues and on player uniforms will also be introduced alongside a ban on celebrity endorsements and betting odds promotion.
There will also be restrictions on radio ads during school drop-off and pick-up hours.
A “triple lock” online standard will ensure ads reach only logged-in adults who haven’t opted out. Dedicated racing channels and TAB outlets are exempt.
You’ll find it at the ACMA: Notably, the government rejected the inquiry’s recommendation for a dedicated national gambling regulator, keeping ACMA as the primary federal enforcement body.
Banks will gain power to block payments to illegal operators, BetStop’s self-exclusion register will be expanded and A$113m has been allocated over five years to reduce gambling harms.
The existing credit card wagering ban will undergo mandatory review from June 2026.
Calendar
May 26-28: Gambling & Risk Taking Conference, Las Vegas
Jun 4: Gaming in Holland, Amsterdam
Jun 10-11: Player Protection Symposium, Fort Lauderdale
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