Are the wheels falling off the Gambling Commission tricycle? No chairman, no chief executive, just a lot of mid-level bureaucrats running the most powerful regulator with impunity. So, is the government really going to allow this farce to continue? It seems it already has: the Minister responsible only works a handful of days a month on the gambling portfolio. Welcome to the UK where the disconnect between legislation, regulation and growth is setting innovation back decades.
It’s not a good time for the Gambling Commission – it’s found itself rudderless following news of the impending departure of chief executive Andrew Rhodes, and still without a permanent chairman in situ.
One industry wag jokingly said to Coinslot after hearing of the Rhodes resignation – “that’s two down, just 300 more to go.”
Such is the respect for the Gambling Commission in industry circles at the moment.
Given that no-one could recall the former GC Chairman’s name, or any of his predecessors to be fair, is an indictment of the organisation. But the prevailing response of contempt around industry circles in the wake of Andrew Rhodes’ exit is disturbing.
We now have two interim posts in the chair and chief executive offices, and neither carry the vision nor the skill-set necessary to turn this Commission around from a punitive to a progressive regulator.
This is not a swipe of disrespect: Charles Counsell is a heavyweight technocrat with a more than impressive CV. But Sarah Gardner, to be fair, certainly doesn’t have the Counsell collateral, and she is, at best, just an adequate regulatory technician.
The Gambling Commission needs more than adequate at its helm.
The government mantra of change is nowhere better focused than on the Commission itself. It’s now nearly twenty years old and it desperately requires a review and a change.
The Commission only sees penalty, never sees prospects. Its personality is prickly not personable; it’s a blocker not a builder.
And it’s stale.
Its default position is archaically anti-industry and that mantra has been driven into the mindset of every staff member.
Without an effective overseer, the Commission has evolved into an authority of arrogance. Its dismissive swipe at the ONS, its regular defiance at DCMS, its recent attack on local authority licensing officers and its rejection of any criticism towards the GSGB are the stepping stones of a regulator testing its ability to move beyond its authority.
This is an organisation that mishandled the National Lottery licence hand-over; that denied the existence of the illegal market all the way up to the spring of last year; that has been accused of trying to influence Treasury policy on taxation; that is overburdening the land based sector and driving players to the black market; that has overseen a decline in gambling venues over the last decade; and has overspent on its budget… and it expects the declining land based industry to pay for these mistakes.
With the prospect of perhaps the rest of this year without the appointment of new blood to the post of chair and chief executive at such a crucial time is frightening.
The Gambling Commission needs a root and branch review and now is the time to do it.
Because nine months of steering gambling through the most important year in its history is far too dangerous in the hands of a rudderless regulator and a rump of a team that only knows how to drive things backwards.
On the Rhodes again
It wasn’t the fondest of farewells for Andrew Rhodes as he announced his exit from the Gambling Commission this week.
There were the standard messages of polite appreciation from various authorities, some indeed very sincere in their messaging.
But, the real people really were unforgiving on social media. X definitely marked a spot:”untold damage”, “totally intransigent”; “a man who single-handedly destroyed the betting industry”; “completely useless”; “should face criminal prosecution.”
And that’s just the nice ones.
In one sense, Andrew Rhodes would do well to wear these comments as a badge of honour. After all, he was a regulator…and we all know, no-one likes a regulator.
But Coinslot’s perspective, though, whilst not complimentary is more compromising.
One key figure in the industry told Coinslot: “If we are being honest, from an industry and consumer perspective, there are more negatives than positives regarding Andrew’s tenure at the GC.”
It wasn’t delivered with any nastiness, it was a simple statement of fact.And it’s difficult to disagree. But…
It shouldn’t have been that way. Rhodes was meant to offer a different path for regulation. He arrived on a wave of optimism – even change.
But at every turn, he always seemed to take the road that led back to the same old, tired Gambling Commission posture.
It was five years of disappointment. The industry is worse off than when he took over; it’s more heavily regulated; it’s more fiscally restricted; it’s moved decades back rather than forward in regulatory commitments; and the industry has declined in numbers significantly.
All Rhodes led to more regulation. And the irony of it all is that the massive increase in regulation during the Rhodes era has opened up more roads that lead to the black market than ever before.
It was a disappointing tenure.
Originally published on Coinslot on February 16, 2026. Republished with permission.