UKGC to licensees ” Reveal your grey market revenue”

The UK Gambling Comission has requested from all licensed operators to disclose all revenues originating from grey markets. Furthermore, the UKGC asked for a legal justification about their presence in these markets and how clear it is.

The point of UKGC is to keep crime out of the gambling industry. Bookmakers will now be obliged to provide data in respect of their group companies’ activities in “grey markets”. This measure applies to control the activities of the sister or subsidiary companies, of the UK licensees.

The companies will be obliged to submit “regulatory returns data” on a quarterly and annual basis.

The commission’s ‘Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice’ (LCCP) asks from every licensed operator to reveal any market from which 3% of their total revenue is derived. For smaller brand names, whose revenues are less than €5.65 million, the percentage goes up to 10%.

In relative objections, the UKGC answered: “Our duty is to “keep crime out of gambling”. Whilst licensed entities may not directly trade in other markets, they are able to benefit from sister companies doing so. As revenues generated in ‘grey’ markets can be used to gain a commercial advantage in Great Britain, the Commission wants licensees to submit data on revenues for the group as a whole”.

Phil Brear, the Gibraltar gambling commissioner, also stated about this issue: “More data is the future. The regulators need to better understand their licensees’ global business model. The new rules might also help the UK “tidy up” the back yard of UK licensees with little or no UK custom”.