The Gambling Regulation Bill displays “a lack of clarity” around a number of key areas including inducements, advertising and minimum stakes, which need to be reviewed to prevent a flood of future legal challenges, according to Regulus, a gambling regulation consultancy firm.

Weaknesses in the long-awaited legislation, which will come before the justice committee this week, include a number of clauses that are vague, the firm said, and these could lead to “considerable market confusion and dysfunctionality”.

Regulus recently offered a series of opinions on the legislation. It said that the approach being taken with the new act was that key areas of concern would be covered and then the new gambling regulator would be allowed to interpret the legislation in practice.

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