Gambling Commission Says its Work is “Undermined” by Social Media

The Gambling Commission’s Executive Director has criticised social media companies for a lack of policing of illegal gambling advertising, claiming it is undermining the work being carried out by the British regulator.

Tim Miller spoke at the annual CMS Conference in London, and with the black market currently being a hot topic of conversation within the industry, Miller directed his frustration at social media. Earlier this month, the Dutch Gambling Authority (KSA) announced it had filed 4,600 reports in April alone with Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, concerning illicit gambling promotions on both platforms.

Miller said: “These social media companies are making a shedload from this and it’s undermining everything that we’re doing.” There is no publicly available information showing how much revenue the likes of Meta may be earning from illegal gambling advertising, but the data from the KSA highlights how common the issue could be.

Recognition of black market

Last week, the Commission began advertising for a Head of Illegal Markets. Data also emerged last week showing the annual amount staked with illegal gambling operators from UK-based players has more than tripled to £16.6 billion since 2019.

The successful applicant for the Head of Illegal Markets role will be tasked with leading high-profile and criminal investigations, providing oversight to the Commission’s illegal markets response, leading on covert surveillance, representing the Commission in judicial proceedings, and contributing to illegal market strategy development, among other duties.

The UK government has also released the three main objectives of its Illegal Gambling Taskforce, which launched in January, bringing together a range of stakeholders to tackle illegal gambling, particularly online. The taskforce includes companies such as Google, Visa, TikTok and Mastercard, alongside law enforcement and advertising bodies.

The first of the three standout objectives will be to prevent or reduce payments to illegal operators. The second objective will be to tackle online advertising of illegal gambling, while the third objective is to improve cross-agency collaboration and enforcement work regarding illegal remote and land-based gambling.

Full steam ahead with affordability checks

Increased black market activity is forecast following the implementation of the government’s 2023 Gambling White Paper. Among the terms recommended were affordability checks (also known as financial risk assessments), improved identification checks, a statutory levy, and a cap on the maximum stakes on online slots at £5 for older adults and £2 for younger adults.

Miller spoke further on the issue of affordability checks, stressing he is determined to go ahead with the final implementation of the checks, following the resignation of an advisory group member. James Noyes left the Gambling Act Review Evaluation Advisory Group, saying he was astonished the policy could be introduced without “meaningful evaluation.”

Light touch vulnerability checks were initially triggered when a player spent £500 in a month as part of a trial that began in August 2024, and from February 28, 2025, this decreased to £150 spend in a month.

While the Commission has not yet signed off on the final implementation of financial risk assessments (FRAs), as they are also known, the British Horeseracing Authority (BHA) understands the Commission is set to sign off on the next pilot in May.

Miller is quoted as saying at the conference: “You can’t evaluate something until you have implemented it. Throughout we have had NatCen [the National Centre for Social Research] and others doing work to understand how that pilot has been developing, but you can’t properly evaluate something until it has actually been rolled out.”

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