Tim Miller has announced he will step down as executive director of policy and research at the Gambling Commission after ten years, pursuing a new role “outside of the British regulated gambling industry.” With numerous executives leaving, and key policies still up in the air, what next for the UK regulated space?
Just one month after Andrew Rhodes stepped down as CEO of the Gambling Commission to pursue a role in the commercial sector, executive director of policy and research Tim Miller has announced he will also leave the regulator, as of this September.
Miller has worked at the Commission for ten years, taking responsibility for the increased focus on research and oversight of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain, and will now “take up a new role outside of the British regulated gambling industry.”
“I have worked at the Commission longer than anywhere else during my career and have found it the most rewarding and fulfilling role,” said Miller.
“In large part this has been due to the amazing and dedicated colleagues that I’ve had the pleasure to work alongside. That’s what made it a hard decision to leave but after ten years I felt ready for the next challenge.”
Miller was responsible for implementing reforms introduced as part of the Gambling Review, such as age verification and direct marketing controls, and will now pursue a career “supporting governments, regulators and other organisations that are developing and overseeing gambling regulatory systems around the world.”
Changing of the guard?
When it comes to the Gambling Commission, all sensitivities need to be discarded. This is a brutal, authoritarian regime – its belief system is to bully rather than build. And one of the key figures of that ideology was Tim Miller.
An old guard soldier who spent most of his time on the defence over his offence. He was the wrong person, in the wrong job, in the wrong time. An alienator rather than an innovator: the industry, and the Commission, are both much the worse for his ten year term.
But we’ll come back to Mister Miller shortly. The most important question remains: what impact will the GamCom reshuffle have on policies yet to be fully addressed in the UK, such as controversial FRAs and the government’s response to the rising black market.
Concerns over its budget shortfall have been shamefully resolved by the government, and while a recent invitation for stakeholders to submit suggestions on how regulation can be “improved or streamlined” will raise more concerns over where spending is being cut, although we needn’t worry, the Commission will ignore that anyway.
All that said, one step in the right direction, though, will be the departure of Miller who has been, what many believe, the most zealous and damaging lieutenant in the Commission’s ranks.
A high earner whose exit will free up a healthy six figure sum, his exit should mark a brain drain of much of that odious rancour that has poisoned the Commission’s personnel root and branch.
It’s not unkind, just a truism that he was unpopular around the industry, and to his credit it’s a reputation he wore like a badge of honour. He was a regulatory devotee and stayed true to that to the end.
But the sentimentalists in Coinslot will miss Mister Miller. Who on earth are we going to goad now? Impervious to criticism, all deserved – of course (!) – he will be missed just for that very reason. And the grace, publicly at least, that he rode those insults is a quality this paper values highly and he deserves massive credit for it.
However, it cannot be ignored that Tim Miller is leaving the Gambling Commission, and his legacy is to leave the industry in a far worse and perilous place than when he started.
And that conjures up one of the best responses of all time. Adapting that classic line, albeit wrongly attributed to Bette Davis when she was told of the death of actress Joan Crawford. She reportedly replied: “My mother always said, ‘Don’t say anything bad about the dead. Only say good.’ Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”
Tim Miller is leaving. Good…But we will miss him and we wish him well.
