The Gambling Commission has invited the Industry Forum to lend its focus to cryptocurrency and how to bring it into the regulated industry. The Forum’s recently appointed interim chair Kirsty Caldwell has virtually snapped the regulator’s hands off in excitement at the challenge. Coinslot argues that there are so many other existential issues facing the land based amusements, gaming and gambling industry to focus on – now.
Kirsty Caldwell, interim chair of the Gambling Commission’s Industry Forum, is to head up an investigation into how cryptocurrency can be integrated into the regulated sector.
Though blockchain payment remains controversial due to concerns regarding security, accountability, and volatility, Caldwell highlighted the opportunity to “boost” the industry.
“Excited to kick start this morning with the first Gambling Commission Industry Forum meeting focusing on how we can safely bring the use of cryptocurrency into the regulated sector (I never thought I’d be saying that out loud!)” said Caldwell.
“I was so delighted when Tim Miller told me about this project a couple of weeks ago and his plans for the Forum to drive it. It’s fair to say that this will be the Forum’s biggest challenge and opportunity to date. It’s also a real chance to make a difference for our industry, when it desperately needs a boost.”
Noting the “scepticism” felt by many industry stakeholders on how engagement with cryptocurrency will impact black market prevalence in the UK, Caldwell acknowledged that “no one is pretending it’s a silver bullet.”
“It is, however, a key player of the black market demand jigsaw and getting this right would be a huge step forward.”
But what about the issues facing the industry right here, right now?
For nearly three years, the Gambling Commission has done absolutely nothing but ignore the Industry Forum, the body it established to drive discussion and dialogue between regulator and regulated.
And now, having appointed a compliance-focused figure to the post of interim chair in the shape of Kirsty Caldwell, it’s decided to ask the Forum to engage in an issue that it wants to look at – cryptocurrency.
With the greatest of respect to the emerging status of cryptocurrency in the gambling arena – as enthusiastic as Caldwell is to accept the challenge, and probably as relieved as Tim Miller is at offloading the crypto crumbs to the Industry Forum, this is, in Coinslot’s humble opinion, a massive distraction from what the industry needs to be talking about and resolving right now.
Caldwell describes crypotcurrency as “the Forum’s biggest challenge and opportunity to date.”
That may well prove to be the case, but I doubt many in the seaside arcades and high street AGCs will agree with that view at this moment.
If we’re talking payments, many in the industry still think debit card use in gaming machines is a bigger issue – and have done so for the best part of this decade. It is a bread and butter issue for thousands of struggling land based operations – and after discussion, after discussion, after discussion, they still can’t accept debit cards in arcades, and probably won’t be able to …. ever.
That, one would imagine, still remains a bigger challenge and opportunity to date. And that’s because the land based sector is falling a decade behind high street retail in payment options – and it’s crucifying them.
And, yet, here we are talking about cryptocurrency. It is so out of touch with what operators are talking about on the high street – the very high street that’s in existential peril and which in itself is also among the biggest challenges that the industry is facing.
And let’s face it, AGC, FEC and bingo players are not discussing the use of cryptocurrency in their favourite high street entertainment venues. They are more likely getting pissed off that they can’t use their debit cards to pay for the various offerings they want to use on their visit to the club or centre.
We need to engage with the industry a little bit more, particularly the land based industry, and probably encourage Tim Miller to do so as well – but this time listen to them.
The AGC sector is crying out for less regulation, especially the kind of red tape that is tying smaller operators up in knots. We need to convey the industry’s rage at a possible increase in GC licence fees; we need to get rid of the nonsense that’s stopping the 80/20 debate from progressing; we need to be hammering home the case that the GC’s posture on GMTS lacks any consistency; we need to be arguing the case that the Cat D consultation is so flawed that it has to be dismissed; and we need to press Tim Miller on why the fuck the industry is being asked to fund the war on the black market through a rise in GC fees particularly when much of the illegal market is operating on the international stage.
The Industry Forum has been handed a cryptocurrency vanity project which will now take top bill over what the UK’s land-based amusements, gaming and gambling sector actually needs now: like good old fashioned debit cards.
And with due respect, it’s all well and good Miller going to ICE and recognising that he’s way out of his depth on the cryptocurrency debate, but his conversations should be with those innovators on the ICE stage that he engaged with at ICE Barcelona.
He should be talking to his regulatory colleagues in Malta and the Isle of Man and the operations under their remit because they are hot on this subject, not – and I say this with love and lots of kisses – the Industry Forum whose skill set is more in tune and right at the heart of the real issues that have been raised in this commentary.
The Industry Forum is a conduit of information and engagement from the UK industry to the Gambling Commission and vice versa. How many times has anyone from the UK land based sector put cryptocurrency on the discussion table over and above Gambling Act Review conversations?
The Industry Forum represents the UK industry’s voice to the regulator and serves as a channel to discuss key issues. But from our side; it’s industry first all the way, not the Commission.
And it’s hard to find industry first in this new project for the Forum.
And quite frankly, Kirsty Caldwell should have carried on the Mission Impossible theme and let the Miller message self destruct in 5 seconds. At least then we’d be able to concentrate on challenging the regulator on things that need changing right here, right now.
