As is well-understood by readers of The Front Runner, we can expect plenty of Government and Gambling Commission consultations in the coming months.

The first round from the Commission were published in July this year and closed in October.

To keep us all busy over the festive period, the Commission has published a fresh round of consultations, which will run for 12 weeks, and which will cover:

• socially responsible incentives – proposals relating to incentives such as free bets and bonuses;
• customer-led tools – proposals to “empower consumers and make it easier for them to manage their gambling in ways that work for them”, such as deposit limits;
• transparency of protection of customer funds – proposals to increase transparency to consumers if their funds are held by licensees that offer no protection in the event of insolvency;
• removing Commission requirements that would become obsolete due to the government’s upcoming statutory levy – proposals to remove the current LCCP requirement to make annual financial contributions to a set list of research, prevention and treatment organisations; and
• regulatory data – proposal to harmonise across all operators the frequency of reporting of regulatory returns from annual to quarterly.

The Commission also confirmed it will launch further consultations in due course which “will include proposals relating to clarity and transparency to the way financial penalties are calculated, and financial key event reporting by licensees to make sure we have the right information for risk-based regulation”.

We will publish thoughts on this latest consultation round in due course.

The consultation can be accessed here and it will close on 21 February 2024.