The UK Gambling Commission increases fines during the second lockdown

The UK Gambling Commission continues to implement new regulations in order to make the gambling market more secure. The regulator believes that the revision of the law is especially necessary in the middle of the pandemic. As the new lockdown starts, the commission warns the online gambling operators not to take advantage of the customers and maintain following the norms of the jurisdiction. This is the main reason why they decided to make some changes to the existing financial fines.

According to the Compliance and Enforcement Report released on Friday by the UKGC, the financial against licenses will be increased even more than the previous year. Specifically, the regulator continues making efforts to ensure the effective operating of the land-based and online casino licenses in the United Kingdom. In fact, it’s what the organization tries to do for the last 12 months but the pandemic was the main reason why applying this kind of dramatic change was so necessary.

As it’s written in the new report, the UK gambling penalties will be up by 50% comparing to the previous year as the regulator reissues pandemic warning. The commission decided to issue 12 financial penalty packages that are worth more than 30 million GDP and it makes over 50% from the collected regulatory slackers from 2018-2019. In particular, the commission decided to suspend five from the existing operating licenses. Besides, they revoked 11 more and planned to review 49 operators that hold personal management license (PML).

How will the operators be affected?

The news is not really favorable for the operators as they had been used to the already strict laws from the British gambling commission. Although there is nothing quite new and special in the report, following the changes probably won’t be easy for them in the middle of the crisis caused by the pandemic. This is why they express dissatisfaction and believe that the actions of the UKGC are related to politics and what they do is nothing more than increasing calls by some authoritative politicians that give them chance to take advantage of the situation and see some benefits. Therefore, some British CEOs believe that British companies need to be free from the monopoly of the commission and the organization needs to be changed completely.

Revising 2005 Gambling Act

The news is part of the plan to implement the absolutely new law and revise the gambling act that had been functioning since 2005. The current gambling law is called the Gambling Act 2005 which is the official document about the jurisdiction regarding gambling activities in Britain. Now the organization is going to revise the law and launch the reviewed version of the Gambling Act. It was the first thing they decided after “getting Brexit done”.

Some people believe that the act truly needed revision because a lot has changed since 2005. Throughout the decade the gambling industry has become more and more digitalized which is why the changes in the gambling law may be necessary. Online players in the UK are often faced with a lot of threats and harms which means that the law needs to be revised. In fact, releasing harsher regulations may be a great advantage for the UK gambling market, but some operators still worry that following a completely new jurisdiction won’t be an easy task for them.