August 2, 2016

The Commission conducted a consultation in 2015 with proposed amendments to its LCCP for all operators in relation to the prevention of crime associated with gambling.  The consultation included suggested amendments for both remote and non-remote operators.

It also completed two short supplementary consultations in June 2016 on the responsible placement of digital adverts and extending the requirement to assess money laundering risk to the non-remote lottery sector.

Following these consultations, the Commission has published LCCP to incorporate all of the amendments.  These will come into force on 31 October 2016.  Sector specific extracts will be published in due course.

The Commission says that the most effective regulatory approach is to focus on the outcomes it expects operators to achieve.  In some areas it specifies particular rules or processes, but where possible, it aims to allow licensees to take differing approaches to meet its requirements.  This includes using rapidly developing technological tools and data analytics.

A key focus of this review has been the anti-money laundering provisions within LCCP and the Commission has introduced a new consolidated principal anti-money laundering requirement as the most significant change.  This will require licensees to assess and manage the risks of their business being used for money laundering and terrorist financing.

The Commission says that its outcomes based approach puts an increasing emphasis on the need for licensees to evidence their decision-making processes, and to be accountable for managing available information.  This helps to assure it that the licensee is serious about assessing, managing and mitigating risks.  This evidence base will also be important to ongoing compliance work and in future enforcement cases, the Commission says.

As part of its ongoing process of reviewing its regulatory approach, the Commission says that it will review information and key events reporting requirements further later in the year as part of a wider review of regulatory data reporting.  This will consider how collecting information around, for example, police call outs to gambling premises might be useful to help meet social responsibility requirements.  To access the new LCCP, click here.