Gambling Commission licence fee income falls by 5% in 2020/21
UK regulator’s annual accounts confirm declines in application fee, personal licences and annual licence fees as operational costs rise to £38m
The Gambling Commission (UKGC) has reported a 5% year-on-year drop in its total income from licence fees between April 2020 and March 2021 as fees income slumped to £18.8m.
Releasing its annual report and accounts for the period, the UKGC confirmed application fee income of £660,000 during the period, down from the £1.02m received during the same period in 2019/20.
Fees received for personal licences dropped by 37% year-on-year to £580,000 between April 2020 and March 2021, while operator annual licence fee income declined to £17.2m in the same period.
Miscellaneous income received by the regulator increased by 64% year-on-year, a rise the UKGC attributed to compliance and enforcement costs received from operators.
UKGC total operational costs rose by just over 1% year-on-year from £37.4m in 2019/20 to £38m in the following period.
In 2020/21, UKGC regulators conducted 25 full assessments of online operators and five land-based firms. Additionally, the UKGC carried out 83 website reviews and 262 security audits.
Twenty-nine personal licence reviews were commenced and 57 were finalised, including those from the previous financial year.
The UKGC suspended five operators, revoking the licences of one operator and nine personal management licence holders.
A total of £32.1m was paid by 15 operators as a result of fines or regulatory settlements. This covered £13.2m in fines and £18.9m in regulatory settlements.
The UKGC employed a total of 335 employees during 2020/21, with the largest number of employees concentrated in its enforcement and intelligence, and licensing departments.
The regulator received 3,836 intelligence reports, relating to a number of issues including social media lotteries, unlicensed remote operators and money laundering.
Its Sports Betting Intelligence Unit received over 700 specific reports on issues including suspicious betting activity, sports rules breaches, misuse of inside information, Gambling Act 2005 offences or other criminality.
Football and tennis continued to be the source for the majority of these alerts, despite disruption to the calendar due to Covid-19.