New Secretary of State for DCMS appointed

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) has a new secretary of state. The appointment of Michelle Donelan is now a fact, and the newly designated official is known as a gambling hawk. Her appointment comes in the wake of Nadine Dorries’ resignation and the election of Liz Truss as the new UK Prime Minister.

This political whirlwind is part of the grander picture in which the long-anticipated White Paper for the upcoming Gambling Act Review has been delayed massively from the original May-June deliverydate. As a result, Donelan is likely to press on with this issue.

According to Clean Up Gambling, an NGO pushing for stricter gambling reforms, 75% of the British public already demands action on the White Paper. While the government of Boris Johnson fumbled through the review, mostly suspecting the imminent fall of the scandal-ridden premiership, some progress was made.

Now, though, Donelan is likely to have a closer look and try to better understand whether the White Paper aligns with her own views and comprehension of how the industry should be re-regulated in what will be the first major overhaul since 2005 when it was legalized.

The Betting and Gaming Council, the biggest gambling trade body, released a statement on the occasion of Donelan’s appointment and stressed the importance of getting the review right:

On behalf of the 119,000 people whose jobs are supported by our members – from the high street to hospitality, from tourism to tech – I’d like to congratulate Michelle Donelan on her new role as Secretary of State for DCMS. Our industry generates £4.5bn in taxes for the Treasury and contributes £7.7bn to the economy in gross value added.

Frustration with delays is also visible in public as operators, workers, and even lawmakers are in a state of limbo. The main pain points for the majority of those involved is whether the industry will face stricter gambling limits in terms of how much people can deposit, tighter KYC and AML checks, and further limitation on advertisement in public.

This last point even prompted the Premier League to scurry off and try to bring clubs together hoping they would opt for a voluntary exclusion of gambling ads. Despite the media noise around the issue, though, the Premier League has not achieved an understanding, but this does not rule out a possibility for the clubs in the Premier League to already have a plan in place and just be waiting for further guidance from 10 Downing Street.

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