The Gambling Commission’s chief executive on Thursday revealed it is “actively investigating” a number of alleged illegal bookmakers but said clamping down on black market operators such as the one revealed by the Racing Post this week was among the “hardest challenges” facing the regulator.
Andrew Rhodes, speaking to the Racing Post following his speech at the Betting and Gaming Council annual meeting in London on Thursday, called on people to contact the commission about similar cases.
It follows a Racing Post investigation into The Post Bookmakers, an unregulated firm which took bets through the messaging app WhatsApp and which claimed to have more than 1,000 customers, including people involved in racing.
Rhodes, who has previously downplayed the risk of the black market, said the Gambling Commission had been following lines of investigation into individuals and organisations, although he did not go into details.
He added: “There are quite a few avenues we have been pursuing in relation to illegality and particularly illegal gambling around horseracing. This is one of the hardest challenges when it comes to illegal gambling, one that relies on word of mouth and relatively small numbers of people.
“I mentioned in my speech an operation across multiple agencies yesterday with several arrests and seizure of cash and gold and a number of other things. Those are the sort of things we eventually find out about and we can take action on with other agencies.”
Last autumn Rhodes told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that when informed about people going to the black market that “not once” had he been given the name of an operator, person, location or anything he could act upon.
Andrew Rhodes: “This is one of the hardest challenges when it comes to illegal gambling.”
He told the Racing Post: “WhatsApp betting rings, where it relies on a small number of individuals, are much harder because until somebody gets ripped off or somebody tells us, it’s harder for us to find. Which is why everybody who is concerned about illegal gambling, particularly around horseracing, when they become aware of these things they ought to be telling us. We can’t act on the things we simply don’t know about. That was really the crux of my point at the select committee.”
Rhodes said a number of names and organisations had now been referred to the commission which is “actively investigating” and that illegal gambling was the fastest growing area in terms of the deployment of resources.
He added: “We have got covert surveillance and investigation powers and we’ll use all of those to make sure we follow up on this.”
The threat from the black market has been highlighted as a potential consequence of the proposed system of affordability checks, or financial risk checks as they have been termed by the government and commission. Last week the commission announced it would run a pilot of the enhanced level of checks.
Rhodes said the black market was not a reason to do nothing, “but it is a reason to do it well”. He added: “That’s why I think piloting financial risk checks and actually having the mass data to analyse is so important in trying to get this right.”
While work is done on finding the promised frictionless system of affordability checks, the commission and gambling firms have also been making efforts to standardise the differing approaches operators adopted in anticipation of the government’s gambling review white paper.
Rhodes said: “We’ve got agreement on principle on a number of things. There are a couple of things that still need to be resolved. I will be meeting with chief executives again next week so I have been handling this personally.
“I think we are very close but that will mean that the industry has to come to a considered view, and to be united in that view, for an industry code to be adopted and recognised by the regulator. It is up to the industry’s ability to implement them but there is a very good reason for them to want to. It brings consistency where there is currently variability and it brings clarity.”
Rhodes said he hoped that could be resolved, leading to a reduction in the number of people being asked to provide documentary evidence under the current regime, “which I think is a good outcome”.
He added: “It has to be something that supports consumer protection and isn’t a reduction in standards but is an important step forward in clarifying exactly what should be taking place.”
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