Ian, this is so very true. Over the past year or so I've been looking into the industry and the GC. After some initial dialogue with them I had instant suspicions about their impartiality and once I read the report you've mentioned above, it was so very clear. I found it utterly disgusting that they tried to stop the £2 minimum stake and it was only due to a public backlash that the government were forced to instigate the move. With my communications with the GC, I asked them why the body that is meant to protect vulnerable people got overruled by the government. As always, their responses to me were very wishy-washy. I'm really looking forward to how they intend to deal with my most recent communications to them, I've asked some very awkward questions to them. The lift is going to start to be lifted!

It seems from media coverage in recent years that the Gambling Commission is in essence a rubber stamp for the industry that funds it. It does nothing whatever to oversee gambling operations in the UK, relying instead on information from outside sources before taking action. The problem is that the GC is fully funded to the tune of more than £20m a year by the operators it pretends to regulate, and spends every penny of its income on staff salaries and pensions. Anyone doubting the pro-industry bias of the GC should take a look at the report on FOBT use that has been on its website for almost two years. This "report" is actually a fabricated set of statistics intended to "prove" that controls introduced by licensees dramatically reduced high-stakes betting on these casino machines. Problematically, the same industry proudly published data showing increased profits from FOBTs in the same study period. (https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/Statistics-and-research/Statistics/Cross-venue-machines-data.aspx).