UKGC Hides Top Operator Licence Fee Data
Regulator cites commercial sensitivity in refusal to name biggest contributors to its £21.3M annual fee income.
The UK Gambling Commission has withheld information identifying the top 10 contributors to its £21.3 million licence fee income for 2022. The regulator argued that disclosing the data would reveal commercially sensitive information about individual operators' market performance.
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Regulator Withholds Data on Largest Licence Fee Contributors
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has refused to identify which gambling operators contribute the most to its operational funding. In a response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request dated 9 February 2023, the regulator confirmed it would not release a list of the top 10 companies by annual licence fee payment for the year 2022.
The request sought to understand the breakdown of the £21,305,000 the UKGC received in annual licence fees that year. It specifically asked for the names of the 10 largest contributors and the individual fee amounts paid by major industry players, including Bet365, Flutter Entertainment, Entain, and 888/William Hill.
Why The Information Was Withheld
The Commission withheld the information under Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, which protects information that would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person.
The UKGC's reasoning is that annual licence fees are directly calculated based on an operator's Gross Gambling Yield (GGY). GGY is the total amount of money staked by customers, minus the winnings paid out. It is the primary measure of a gambling firm's revenue and market share.
By releasing the licence fee paid by an individual operator, the UKGC argued it would effectively be publishing their GGY. This, it stated, is commercially sensitive data that is not otherwise in the public domain and could give competitors an unfair advantage.
The Public Interest Test
As required by the FOIA, the UKGC conducted a public interest test to weigh the arguments for and against disclosure.
Arguments for disclosure:
- Promotes the transparency of the Gambling Commission's funding.
- Allows the public to have confidence that the regulator is being open and can be held to account.
Arguments for maintaining the exemption:
- Disclosure would reveal individual operator GGY.
- Operators have a reasonable expectation that this level of detail will remain confidential.
- Releasing the data could provide competitors with a commercial advantage.
- It could lead to "unjustified inferences" being made about operators without full context.
Ultimately, the Commission concluded that "the public interest is best served through maintaining this exemption," stating there was a greater than 50% chance that disclosing the information would cause prejudice to the commercial interests of its licensees.
What This Means for Consumers
This decision highlights the ongoing tension between regulatory transparency and corporate confidentiality in the UK gambling industry. While the UKGC publishes aggregated industry statistics, this refusal prevents the public from seeing the precise market share and scale of the country's largest and most dominant gambling companies.
For consumers, it means that a key indicator of an operator's size—the amount it pays to the regulator—remains secret. This lack of transparency limits the public's ability to fully understand the concentration of the market and the true financial scale of the firms they are gambling with.