Gambling Commission decides where settlement funding should go

The Gambling Commission has confirmed that funds from regulatory settlements will be paid into the government’s consolidated fund, meaning the administration can decide whether to spend the funding on tackling gambling-related harm or for other purposes.

The final decision was detailed in an update on Wednesday, and followed a public consultation in which stakeholders raised concerns around how the funds would be used, if they left the gambling ecosystem.

Previously, settlements made between licence holders and the commission would fund GambleAware projects to support the research into problem gambling. But the charity ceased trading in March, following the introduction of the Statutory Levy.

Under the levy, mandatory industry funding for gambling-related harm research and prevention efforts is received by the government’s Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).

Within its consultation, which ran to April, the commission asked stakeholders whether they thought the settlement funding should indeed be submitted to the consolidated fund. The consultation received 28 responses, spanning operators, trade bodies, gambling harms charities and members of the public.

What did respondents to the consultation say?

Half of the respondents disagreed with the Gambling Commission’s suggestion, and argued that funds would be leaving the gambling ecosystem and would be used by government for non-gambling priorities.

“There was a belief that without this connection, regulatory settlements would no longer act as a deterrent,” the Gambling Commission reported in its consultation review document.

It said some respondents felt that regulatory settlements “should still be added to the overall levy pot and used by the levy commissioning bodies, whereas others supported a more flexible approach which could be more easily accessed by smaller third sector organisations who may not receive any direct funding from the levy system”.

The regulator acknowledged its decision to send funds to the Consolidated Fund would be “unpopular” among respondents, as some would have received regulatory settlement funding in the past.

“However, despite the lack of overall support for the proposal, given the limited alternative options available to us we still believe that in the absence of a central commissioning body or bodies that can receive and spend regulatory settlement funds in a coordinated way, that sending regulatory settlements to the Consolidated Fund in future remains our only viable option,” it said in the report.

The Commission also said it believed that funding from the Statutory Levy would be sufficient “to deliver a sustainable and equitable funding system for research, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harm”.

Money from the Consolidated Fund is typically put towards public expenditure, including funding day-to-day public services, government departmental operations and national debt servicing.

Statutory levy implimentation

Many in the sector have been critical of the OHID’s lack of planning for distributing the levy funding. Huge emphasis has been placed on the funding going towards entities that are not affiliated with the sector.

This follows researchers expressing concerns around the sector’s influence on research funded by the statutory levy in a parliamentary health committee session in April 2025.

At the time researchers suggested the industry had influenced how and where previous funding was spent. This was before the Statutory Levy was implemented later that year.

In December, the DCMS reported some 50% of levy funds would go towards treatment, 30% prevention and 20% research.

Nicole Macedo

Nicole cut her teeth in local news rooms at home in Gibraltar, and helped to establish the peninsula’s first online-only broadcaster.