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Should the Commission Scale Down?

The newly implemented UK Gambling Commission was designed to replace Britain’s previous Gaming Board. The Commission has more powers to regulate the online casino and land-based gambling industry than the Board was granted, and also has a much larger staff. But now that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has nixed the planned supercasino, and the online casinos are not flocking to Britain for licensing, many are questioning why the Commission needs such a large staff to oversee its scaled down duties. The Guardian, a UK newspaper criticized this point in a recent op-ed piece.

The Gambling Commission operates with a staff of 200 – the Gaming Board operated with half this amount and was still effective. Granted the Commission has developed some new regulations for the online casino industry, but the 200 staff were previously approved because the Commission would have two duties that it no longer has – the supercasino and the licensing of internet gambling sites in Britain.

Online casinos are not flocking to the UK for licensing like the government planned because, as the author of The Guardian piece notes, “nobody wants to pay tax at the UK rate of 15 percent of gross profits.” Internet gambling sites can have all of the benefits of the UK regulations while holding licensing in other jurisdictions and significantly less in profit taxes.

PM Brown, though not able to reverse the Gambling Act and powers granted to the Commission, did stop the supercasino from progressing as soon as he took office. The supercasino venture – along with several other planned land-based casinos are no longer falling to the Commission’s man-power to regulate.

So it still begs the question, why does the Commission need 200 staff in comparison to the staff the Gaming Board operated on for years.