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Gambling industry executives are sceptical of news reports claiming the contents of the much-anticipated UK Gambling Act review white paper have already been finalised.
The Times newspaper reported this week that the white paper proposals will not include a complete ban on gambling sports sponsorships, but will ease land-based gambling venue restrictions, create an ombudsman and limit online stakes to between £2 and £5.
Discussing the reports on panels at the World Gaming Executive Summit (WGES) held on June 29-30 in Barcelona, Dan Waugh of UK-based consultancy and research firm Regulus Partners said the industry is definitely “getting clues” about the white paper.
Waugh explained that “depending on what part of the industry you sit in the reports could be good or bad”, with the current likely winner of the proposals seeming to be land-based casinos, before he stressed that the reports are “still only rumours”.
Brigid Simmonds, trade group the Betting and Gaming Council’s (BGC) chair, expressed support for several policies mentioned in the news reports.
Simmonds said top of the BGC’s wishlist for industry change is having the limit of gaming machines in casinos increased, in particular for those licensed before the 2005 Gambling Act, which are limited to just 20 machines, as opposed to 80 machines in a small casino licensed after the act.
The BGC said it is also pushing the government to look into allowing casino licensees to offer games based on a random number generator, such as blackjack machines.
“These things are all about choice. Making a change to allow sports betting in casinos is also important, it should be something a casino can take advantage of, not just online business," Simmonds said.
Waugh explained that currently the Hippodrome Casino London can entertain around 1,500 customers but it is only allowed 20 machines, saying “it can’t be in the customer's best interest to wait to use a product in a casino”.
Analysts at Peel Hunt predict that “with such harmonisation, Rank might approximately double the number of machines in its Grosvenor venues estate, increasing the appeal of the venues to mass-market customers”.
However, if there are changes to the number of gaming machines, it will not happen overnight and could actually just require secondary legislation instead, according to Simmonds, who added that “anything that requires new legislation will probably take a number of years”.
In a separate panel discussing sports betting, Jon Don-Carolis, commercial director at Fulham Football Club, said his team, which has just been promoted to the Premier League, is expecting to not be able to sign a new gambling shirt sponsor from the 2023/2024 season.
However, Don-Carolis said Fulham is hearing you can sign deals up to three-years long until then, predicting there will be quite a few long-term deals popping up before the cut-off, such as Everton’s recent controversial multi-year partnership with Stake.com.
“There is a lot of red tape you have to jump through to sponsor a Premier League club and a lot of due diligence to become a brand operating in this space. It filters out the less angelic brands from the industry,” Don-Carolis said.
Fulham’s commercial director did admit, however, that despite exploring suitable shirt sponsors that match the team's identity, ultimately the choice of sponsor comes down to hitting revenue targets and he believes gambling firms are still willing to pay the most.
“Non-gambling brands do not have as much money on the table for these deals. There is a distinct parity even in the pricing for billboard advertising between gambling and non-gambling brands,” Don-Carolis said, explaining the difficult situation a lot of football clubs find themselves in.
Earlier this month, a representative from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) said it was still not clear when in the “coming weeks” the UK’s much-anticipated Gambling Act review white paper will be published or what it will cover.
The DCMS claim followed the publishing of an article released by The Times newspaper in May which also said the government is expected to announce a maximum stake of between £2 and £5 for online gamblers using slot machines, with players only allowed to gamble more if they pass "affordability checks" to prove they are not making unsustainable losses.
The article in May did differ to the newspaper's most recent article in that it also predicted that Premier League clubs were being forced to remove gambling sponsors from the front of football shirts.
