Checks unbalanced
Pressure builds on UKGC over risk checks
Buried consumer survey returns to haunt the UK Gambling Commission.
Cross-party gambling MPs criticize the affordability checks plans.
Outside influence: Coalition for Prediction Markets hires lobbying firm Invariant.
We get letters: AGA and IGA team up to call for predictions action.
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Haunted
Smother knows best: A consumer survey the UK Gambling Commission commissioned, then declined to publish for three years, has resurfaced as the central exhibit in a growing case that Britain’s affordability check regime is driving gamblers offshore.
The argument was set out in detail by industry consultant Vaughan Lewis, formerly of Evoke, at the CMS Gambling Conference last week and reiterated by a subsequent newsletter post.
His analysis aligns with positions taken by the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC), which has been increasingly vocal in challenging the Commission’s approach.
The BGC is now reported to the threatening legal action over the checks and has written to the Commission warning of “serious failings” in the proposals.
Our survey says: The Commission survey, conducted in early 2021 with around 12,000 respondents, found that 78% of consumers thought gambling businesses should not be required to assess affordability.
Only 14% said they would provide financial information if asked by an operator, 42% said they would refuse outright and 54% said they would never share such data under any circumstances.
Nearly a quarter said they would switch to providers that did not ask; in other words, to unlicensed sites.
Freedom of disinformation: The Commission did not publish these results. When Regulus Partners submitted a freedom of information (FOI) request in October 2023, the Commission rejected it on the grounds that there was “no outstanding public interest” in disclosure.
The data was only released in April 2024, after a second FOI request, by which point the Gambling Act Review and the 2023 consultation on financial risk assessments had concluded.
Pressed by the DCMS Committee on why the results had not been published, then Commission CEO Andrew Rhodes was dismissive.
“I am not familiar with the reason why it was not published at the time it was completed. It predates me,” he stated.
Driven to distraction: Lewis argued that the sequence of events amounts to a governance failure rather than a policy disagreement. “The regulator had evidence that its own policy would drive customers to the black market,” he wrote.
“It buried that evidence. It proceeded with the policy. And it is now resisting evaluation before rollout.”
Noyes off: The “resisting evaluation” charge refers to the recent news that government advisor James Noyes has resigned from the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group, stating that financial risk checks were being rolled out “before any meaningful, and independent, evaluation of this policy can be carried out.”
His resignation letter, since published, indicated that the NatCen evaluation team itself accepts its work “will not give us the definitive position on the impact of the Gambling Act Review as a whole.”
Asked about the resignation at CMS, Commission executive director Tim Miller responded: “You can’t evaluate something until you have implemented it.”
Black and Whiting: The market data Lewis presented alongside Adam Rivers of Alvarez & Marsal and Lewis Whiting of Obviously gives the regulatory dispute its weight.
The scanning work presented at CMS by Obviously identified more than 100,000 suspicious domains targeting UK consumers, around 80% of them registered in the last 12 months.
The Commission has removed approximately 300 in the most recent quarter.
Lewis argued that the enforcement model “is structurally incapable of keeping pace” and that the gap cannot be closed by the regulator’s £26m anti-black-market funding alone.
Questions, no answers: Lewis closed his piece with two questions for the government rather than for the Commission. The first asked whether gambling, or at least gambling payments, should be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rather than the Gambling Commission, on the basis that payments blocking is a proven FCA tool.
“We know that payments blocking works, and switching regulators has the potential to significantly change the calculus,” said Lewis.
Back to basics: The second called for a full independent evaluation of the cumulative impact of recent interventions. This would encompass the recent RGD increase to 40%, affordability checks, advertising restrictions, stake limits, the credit card ban and the VIP ban.
Lewis suggested there should be a credible mechanism to reverse measures that are shown to have worsened outcomes.
“Policy that cannot be corrected when it fails,” he wrote, “is not evidence-based. It is institutional stubbornness with a research budget.”
The write stuff
Flat out: A cross-party group of 19 MPs representing British racecourse constituencies has urged Culture secretary Lisa Nandy to halt the rollout of gambling affordability checks, warning the measures could inflict major financial damage on horseracing.
The MPs criticized what they described as “insufficient scrutiny” and a lack of transparency surrounding the Gambling Commission’s plans.
In an open letter ahead of a Commission board meeting this week, the MPs argued the checks are far more intrusive than initially presented and risk undermining trust in the regulated betting market.
Racing industry stakeholders estimate the measures could cost the sport £250m over five years through reduced betting activity and lower levy contributions.
The criticism follows the resignation of government advisor James Noyes from the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group, reportedly over concerns that the policy had not been properly evaluated before implementation.
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Rhode Island could move away from its sports-betting monopoly model under newly proposed legislation. SB 3118 would expand the market to between four and six retail and online operators, while reducing the tax rate from 51% to 12%. Operators would need to partner with an in-state casino and obtain approval from the Rhode Island Lottery. The bill targets a market launch before January 1, 2027 and is set for a Senate committee hearing on Wednesday. IGT has operated Rhode Island’s exclusive sportsbook since 2019.
Colorado lawmakers have passed SB 131, a sports-betting reform bill now awaiting Gov. Jared Polis’ signature. The measure would ban promotional push notifications, restrict gambling ads on platforms with predominantly under-21 audiences, cap player deposits at six per day, prohibit credit-card funding and require operators to accept winning bettors. Sportsbooks would also face expanded reporting requirements.
Wisconsin: Gov. Tony Evers has signed an executive order barring Wisconsin state employees from using insider information to trade on prediction markets, citing the sector’s rapid expansion. The move follows calls from federal lawmakers for a congressional investigation into alleged insider trading tied to geopolitical events on Polymarket. Wisconsin officials noted no cases involving state employees have been identified to date.
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PAC up: “A group funded by sports gambling companies FanDuel and DraftKings poured more than $2.2m into ads to defeat [Alabama Republican state Senate candidate] Rusty Glover, a gambling opponent, in a suburban Mobile district with fewer than 150,000 residents, according to ad analytics company AdImpact.” Bloomberg on how companies are gaining leverage on regulations via weighing into state election races.
Outside influence
Variants of our times: The Coalition for Prediction Markets has hired Invariant as its first outside lobbying firm, according to a disclosure filed on Friday, covering work on “issues related to event contracts regulation and prediction markets.”
The account, effective from April 1, is being handled by Paul Nemetz, Noah Marine, Kenny Roberts and Steve Weyler.
The industry-backed coalition launched six months ago and counts Kalshi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Robinhood and Underdog among its founding members.
The hire comes as prediction markets face growing scrutiny in Washington over insider trading concerns and over whether sports-related contracts should be treated as gambling or federally regulated event contracts.
The coalition has taken a bipartisan approach, with former Democratic congressman Sean Patrick Maloney as president and former Republican congressman Patrick McHenry as a senior advisor.
They wanna ban us on Capitol Hill: At a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing on sports betting scheduled for Wednesday, McHenry is due to testify for prediction markets and American Gaming Association chief executive Bill Miller is set to appear for the traditional gaming industry.
Separately, NBC reported that a new group, FairPredicts, has launched a six-figure Washington ad campaign aimed at “holding Kalshi and other prediction market operators accountable for the growing gap between what they tell the public and what they actually do.” A charge Kalshi said “smells like a casino-led effort.”
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
Congress call
Let me tell it to you straight: The American Gaming Association (AGA) and the Indian Gaming Association (IGA) have jointly urged Congress to add explicit language to pending federal legislation to stop federally regulated platforms from offering sports and casino-style event contracts.
In their letter, AGA chief executive Bill Miller and IGA chair David Bean said “the time has come” for Congress to give “unambiguous direction” as prediction markets expand beyond their original niche.
The two argued that contracts offered by platforms such as Kalshi and Crypto.com are “indistinguishable” from traditional sports-betting products already regulated by states and tribes.
They warned that federally regulated sports event contracts are effectively creating a nationwide betting market outside existing state and tribal gaming frameworks.
I can’t handle change: The letter said prediction market products have evolved over the past 18 months from simple outcome contracts into offerings that resemble parlays and other sportsbook-style bets.
The two trade groups told lawmakers that allowing that expansion to continue would undermine state sovereignty, tribal exclusivity arrangements and consumer protections built into licensed gaming systems.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission chair Michael Selig recently said prediction markets and sports betting are “two separate things” and has continued to defend event contracts as financial instruments rather than gambling products.
House probe
Broken records: Seven House Democrats have asked House Oversight Committee chair James Comer to investigate and issue subpoenas for internal records from prediction market platforms, citing suspected insider trading tied to government-related event contracts and recent trades linked to Iran and Venezuela.
The lawmakers said suspicious trading on Polymarket’s offshore platform raised questions about whether traders used classified or other nonpublic information and if the platforms are enforcing meaningful compliance controls.
They asked Comer to outline the committee’s approach by May 22, and the chair has since indicated the committee is taking the issue seriously.
“This is a problem,” he said, adding that if government employees, military personnel or administration officials are using privileged knowledge “to profit from that in a prediction market, then they should be held accountable.”
Regulators and lawmakers have intensified scrutiny of insider trading in prediction markets following the recent arrest of a US soldier accused of using classified information about the Maduro raid to make more than $400,000 on Polymarket.
Problem solving
Addressing concerns: Kalshi has become the first major prediction market platform to partner with the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG), marking a notable shift in how the rapidly expanding sector is addressing responsible gambling concerns. According to a report from Axios, Kalshi will contribute $2m over two years to fund research and consumer protection initiatives tied to prediction market trading.
The NCPG had previously warned that prediction markets expose users to many of the same harms associated with traditional gambling products.
This includes impulsive betting behavior, chasing losses and addiction risks.
The organization also raised concerns that platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket are accessible to users aged 18 and older, unlike most regulated US sportsbooks that require customers to be at least 21.
Kalshi’s agreement appears designed to counter growing criticism that prediction markets lack the responsible gambling infrastructure embedded within state-regulated sportsbooks.
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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