UK gambling chief dismisses black market fears
Jenny Williams says re-regulated UK market shouldn't be compared to the likes of Italy and Spain
The UK market won’t suffer the same black market problems as Spain and Italy following re-regulation, UK Gambling Commission chief executive Jenny Williams (pictured) told eGaming Review.
In an exclusive interview, Williams dismissed fears the UK’s move to a Point of Consumption regime would result in a steep rise in unlicensed operators citing a vastly different operating environment to other major regulated European markets.
“Those markets have a very different offer with a much more restricted set of products,” Williams said of the Spanish, Italian and French markets.
“They’ve got, certainly in France’s case, a very high tax rate, so in the UK where we have got a very open market and a very broad range of products it’s much more like the Danish situation where they are very confident they have a small black market; we expect to be in the same position,” she added.
Williams’ comments come after Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner Phill Brear last month said the UK would struggle to control the size of the black market once the new framework and 15% profits tax comes into effect as expected later this year.
“The UK is levelling up the compliant and co-operative half of the remote playing field, whilst giving the non-compliant and uncooperative half a free-reign to draw in UK customers with better deals,” Brear told eGR.
“The evidence and consequences of such an approach from the US, France, Italy and Spain have been under-weighed and the same problems will emerge in months and years to come, but it is their choice,” he added.
A recent study on the Spanish market by eGR Insights revealed that more than a third of online gaming revenues were being lost to offshore operators as players opted to use unregulated dot.com sites.
It has also been estimated that as much as 50% of the Italian online gaming market is in the hands of black market operators.
Jenny Williams was speaking exclusively to eGaming Review as part of a feature that will appear in the May edition of the magazine.