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Betting and Gaming Council's AGM delivered a clear message. Dismantling black market operators sits firmly at the top of regulatory agenda for 2026 and beyond. For a trade body that has faced sustained scrutiny, not least during last year's prolonged tax judgement, the Moods suggested a sector keen to reset and present a more unified front. But unity is only the starting point. Does UK gambling carry enough political goodwill to win what is being framed as its next generational challenge. And beyond rhetoric, what concrete commitments were outlined to combat and disable black market encroachment, a task that will require coordination well beyond the governance of the industry itself. Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators. I'm Charlie Horner, and today I'm joined by SBC's editor at large, Ted Menmure and iGame and experts, Christian Lee. Ted, how's things? Did you enjoy the AGM yesterday? I did. I did. And got some very good notes in there. And I thought it was kind of a, I think the best one they've done to date. Wow. I think we kind of, well, we're going to talk more about it. So I'm going to give everything away in the intro. Best, best ever. Wow. High praise. Christian, I believe it was your first BGC AGM. How did you find it? Yeah, I enjoyed it. It was my best ever as well, despite the fact that it was my first one. yeah, everyone, I think everyone had the same sentiment. All right, let's dig into this then. Let's start with that sort of mood in the room, Ted. What were the vibes like yesterday? Because, you know, it's been a bit doom and gloom for the BGC in recent months, particularly with that budget. Do you feel like there's still sort of strained relationships across UK gambling, or is it a little bit more unified? Yeah, look, the mood was noticeably more constructive ah than defensive. And I think if we go back to 12 months ago, the conversations were dominated by the operators and the industry's frustration over the fiscal headwinds and how protracted they were and drawn out across the year. I think the audience and panel members and just overall stakeholders went there with a sense of like, that's reset things. And I think that in the black market, they've got a subject matter or a threat that they can begin to coordinate around. But there's still, and I think Christian will probably say the same, that there's still so many kind of unknowns. And there's also kind of the realization that this is really ground zero for everyone ah in how they coordinate to tackle a threat as nuanced as uh black market. This isn't just about policy. It's going to take a lot more in terms of goodwill, how patient we are to actually see results and truly kind of like resources needed beyond gaming to actually get any effects, any positive effects from this generational challenge as it's framed. look Christian, we can't really hide from the fact that The central topic of this AGM was the black market. think it was, you know, it was the title of the AGM itself was fighting the black market. So what did you get from the day itself and what do you think stakeholders are actually aligned on when they describe the black market as a generational challenge? Yeah, I mean, I think time will tell to see if it is actually talk or there is action that backs up. But I did definitely like to have said since that regulators, operators, the BGC, they all do generally want to work together to fight against the black market, given the impact it's currently having. I mean, it's not a new threat, but it's becoming increasingly clear how much of a threat it now is. And from an operator's point of view, because of the financial challenges, I find they understand that it is now in all of their best interest to keep as many people in the regulated market as possible for the financial benefits of that. So hopefully that means that there will be greater will. collaborate and work together to fight against black market. mean, there's no hiding from the fact either Ted, that operators really want the government to crack down on the black market because they have raised taxes on the regulated sector and operators will want to feel like being in the UK market is worth it. Paying those high tax rates is worth it and they aren't just going to lose players to the black market. And that there seems to be a a real agenda that this year fighting and taking that fight to the black market. Um, well, what signals do you think is coming from, from the government agencies, from DCMS, from the UK GC, from other authorities in, terms of instigating that battle? Well, here kind of returned to 2026 and what we've gone through in like the four in the previous years. And in 2026 has been kind of pitched as the definitive year of white paper reforms. They either get set this year or we return back to kind of reviewing the gambling review. And I think this kind of creates kind of the pivot point that once kind of the affordability limits are set, same with staking limits and same with the kind of all-round compliance framework. Once those are kind of embedded, I think DCMS and UKGC are kind of now going to monitor and overview of what's happened to UK gambling. think later on down the line, we're going to address Tim Miller, but what he said is that it appears that UK gambling is getting off its regular treadmill. It's going to go through a period of resettlement. And I think that in this period, we now move on to what is the next challenge for the industry and what is threatening the industry from safeguarding consumers and that appears to be the black market. Again, I'd to highlight what Christian said that yes, the rhetoric is easy, but the reality is much more difficult. the reality is incredibly difficult and it takes uh a lot of work to take that fight to the black market. And one thing that the government is doing, Christian, is forming the illegal gambling task force. And I believe, Baryon S. Twycross, the gambling minister, is going to be part of that task force or she is part of that task force and she was there last week at the AGM. Did you provide any further detail on how that unit will actually operate? We know that they have 26 million pounds of funding, but we don't know much about what the task force will actually do. was fairly tight-lipped in terms of any more details, to be honest. guess we've been so new, they're still sort of m putting together exactly what task force will do and what. their sort of mandators, but what we do know that the freaky aspects are targeting illegal payments in the black market sector, illegal advertising and broadening cross-border collaboration. Simon Zinger from Entain, who was sat on the main panel of the day, he spoke about the fact that the banks have been nowhere to be seen in his words. So far in the black market fight. So if the task force can bring sort of Visa, MasterCard, these big banking platforms to the table. they could also have a significant impact on finding the black market as cutting off the payment pipeline is a key measure in the fight. I think it goes to show that this fight goes way beyond the gambling industry itself. is going to be getting those payment providers involved. It's going to be getting big tech involved, like social media platforms who provide those advertising platforms. But Ted, I think it would be remiss of us to talk about the BGC's AGM without talking about the organization itself. And I believe the CEO, Gronya Hurst, addressed attendees as well. Did she talk about the black market threat? if so, what stood out from her analysis? So I was really impressed by a one-to-one interview uh on the subject matter and what stood out was kind of her data framing, but also how much she kind of cares about this subject matter. And you've got to remember kind of where the BGC were last year and how they took on kind of the subject of tax. And I think that in terms of the black market, she's kind of framed it kind of in a more kind of holistic approach and also kind of brought in who the stakeholders should be, how uh it needs kind of a comprehensive or much broader look at it. And also kind of the realization of where kind of everyone is in combating this threat. still very much at the beginning. One thing that she is adamant on fighting about is that she wants to kind of change the perception of gambling within political ranks and that it's got to move on from its phrase of kind of being maligned and being thought as a threat. She said that she found it really unpleasant that when the budget came in, uh gambling was kind of aligned with the same, know, was kind of categorized as the same as people who'd kind of tax dodged that we kind of got a tax raise out of this industry. And she thought that that wasn't, that was complete misrepresentation, that you've to kind of present the industry in a fair light. And also, what is at scale of this kind of fallout if we lose or if we kind of get sidetracked in this? Look, the black market targets the most vulnerable players. It's very good at it. Its loopholes haven't been closed. It also provides no taxes and it's also a threat to jobs, well-paying jobs in the UK. The more it grows, right, the more effective it becomes. And the other thing that she pointed out was just how in other markets, you know, you take Poland, you take Germany, this reality has started to embed itself, right? And it's very hard to kind of return back to the way things were. Yeah, it's a lot to dissect there really, Ted. But it was a pretty difficult end of 2025 for the BGC. I remember before the tax rises came into play, the BGC was brought before a panel of uh MPs and one was grilled. And I think we were particularly We had a few comments to make on the podcast and across the news network, but it certainly seems like the VGC's comms strategy is far more unified coming into 2026 and really framing around the existential threat that the black market poses. So yeah, really interesting to get Hearst's there. But we'll take a quick break and we'll come back and we'll dive into this a little bit more. John's after the break. Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Today we're talking all about the BGC's AGM that took place last week. And luckily we've got two gentlemen who were in the room for it. Christian, is the fight against the black market becoming the next big benchmark by which the BGC will be judged ultimately following white paper reforms and the tax debates of 2025? Yeah, I think 100%. I mean, the whole AGM was. That was a title of it. That was the theme of it, the black market. And if you're to sort of like be the drum around making headway in terms of this fight, then going forward, they have to make meaningful headway. Especially for their members as well. mean, it's hard to say exactly how they are viewed, but in terms of the tax debate that they sort of put themselves at the center of the last time, they sort of appeared to go largely unheeded with the government given outcome of the budget. if, again, if they don't make much headway in terms of finding a spot market then, it may be risk you get to the end of year and it appears that the BGC is more about words than actually actions. this is the thing, Ted, isn't it? Because if we're sitting here and saying that, you know, we're going to be judging the BGC based on how it fights against the black market, they're not really in control of that fight, they? When you think about it, they need to get the support of government, they need to get the support of agencies and different stakeholders to come together and rally around this battle. It's a little bit more complicated than you might think, isn't it? oh My belief here is that we're taking this as the reset for the BGC. I think that it's a subject matter that is kind of more favorable to them as a trade body. What they will be kind of benchmarked and judged here is coordination, how they present this threat to the government, the government agencies and how they create goodwill between these departments to tackle this subject matter. Now, again, one of the things that got pointed out was The fact that we know so little and it's so hard to actually judge the size of the black market. But I think that's kind of one point where everyone has to work with each other and actually start to get some figures on the page. What are we really going up against? ah We know kind of the entry points of the black market. And one of the things that ah was pointed out is just how liable the big platforms are. You know, Google, your Metas. and how little they've done to actually stop this. uh There are some kind of clear-cut points that the BGC can start to challenge immediately. So I agree with Christian, it's definitely what they're to be judged in the next couple of years. Well, something else that took significant attention in the AGM was Tim Miller's speech, the executive director of the gambling commission. Christian? Could you give us a bit of an overview of what Miller was talking about? what does it tell us about the direction that the gambling commission is going down as those white paper changes are going into full implementation this year? I think definitely my main takeaway point for me was around regulatory stability. I think as Ten mentioned before that it's all a timelapse by the fact that the UKGC feels like they've sort of been on a bit of a treadmill these last few years in terms of There's been a lot of regulatory changes about much time between them. So now what they really want is a time for evaluation and talk to like these changes bedding and to see the impact of them, which I sort of agree with him on that point, because what's the point of making reforms if you then bring something else in straight away after that, you'd no idea if they're actually working on that. So I think that the UKGC probably feel like they need a little bit of a break after the sort of the white paper, the tax changes have come one after the other. Yeah, I don't think the gambling commission would get in too much of a break, will it Ted? Were you in the room for Miller's speech as well? And if so, what did you take away from it? know, kind of reflecting back on yesterday, I one thing that's clear is that there is that transition to come from the operators themselves and them kind of reviewing their operations in this kind of a big adjustment to the 40 % era of tax. And I think that the UK gambling commission, one thing that was very clear on was that it had the commission had no say on the tax. That's down to the treasury, the budget, its calculation, and it can't comment whether it's right or wrong. What it can say, what it does realize is that there will be kind of a system shock or a system impact for UK gambling, and it might um enable kind of more of the black market, right? So that's something that it's very wary of. But I think that as Christian said, I think Mila now kind of Miller and especially UKGC that's transitioned to new leadership. I think that it wants to kind of move gambling into a new remit or a new kind of era of governance. And I think it's moving on from the road zero, which is very much a kind of oversight on conduct, oversight on enforcement. It's much more about kind of coordinating on the bigger picture stuff. Another point that keeps on getting reiterated is that How do you get kind of like consumer trust back in gambling and especially in an era where they might be kind of, you know, regulated brands might be kind of undercut by black market, by black market offerings. So I think that you have a regulated now that's kind of much more weary of the all-round impacts and who, what is that play for the industry? know, we talk about coordination being incredibly important in all of this. m How does the government's wider political agenda, enforcement, digital policy, economic growth, affect that coordination? We're coming towards the end of the second year of this m government's parliamentary reign, if you like, until we get to the next election. seems to be a little bit of uncertainty, instability. We're recording our day where the government's just lost a by-election and that's going to create political turmoil. uh Christian, how do you look at how the government's uh political agenda is affecting that coordination that we're talking about here? think the key words are around the uncertainty is a big thing at the moment. The UK's you see emphasised that in the grand scheme of things, they are a small public body. I think that was in Tim Miller's own words. So they need the government to sort of be at the forefront of fighting against the black market. And if the government, if there is uncertainty in the government and there's a lot of things on, sort of the government is spinning a lot of players at the same time, there is a worry that the gambling will be pushed sort of aside a little bit and the fight against black market will be pushed aside to address different reasons instead. And if that's the case, then as much will in the world from the UKGC, the BGC. There's not a lot they can do if the government isn't the one driving forward. Ted, how do you look at this one? Yeah, I think that this is kind of the determining factor here. one that the UKGC are well aware and also kind of BGC members. Look, there is huge, huge question marks about how Labour wants to go reshape online protections and digital rights. And also the big papers coming in. And one of the things that I got flagged was the FCA, just yet to publish its determinations on how it's going to integrate crypto into UK finance. And from there, kind of that builds the platform for the UKTC to be gun to kind of better policing of crypto transactions and uh crypto wallets engaged with UK gambling. And again, also that kind of gives them the right to go and investigate and prosecute the illegal actors. It's another kind of black hole that needs to be covered. And I think kind of the other thing in the window here is the of the anxieties and social anxieties of not only the Labour Party, but I think each individual party in the UK has towards digital economy, the digitalisation of jobs, but also online threats and how they are going to view to tackle the subject matter, which I think every camp's of pitching up kind of very, very diverse options. And there's no kind of determinations yet or kind of cross-census on what should be achieved. And we are dealing with a government here that has a huge, huge mandate, a massive majority, almost record level majority, but we're in a deeply fragmented political system where political support is so widely spread out across all those different parties. it's a little bit of a paradox in terms of what can actually be done. it seems like the BGC's AGM was a more unified room than it has perhaps been in previous years. But given all those issues that we've spoken about and all the coordination that needs to happen to take the fight on the front foot, can UK Gambling realistically keep that united front on this issue? Ted, you want to go first? I'm just going to say, just give it another year. I think that's the only way we can play this. let's return next year and see what the vibes are like. Christian, what do you think? Yeah, I think I'm on the same wavelength as Ted that it's a case of wait and see. I mean, the operators at the AGM and Turner, they taught a good game about wanting to come together based on two months time, four months time, eight months time. Can they put these rivalries aside and can they actually like all come to the table together and find a way forward? Or is it just a case of it's more worth an absence? We'll see. Maybe this time next year we'll all be millionaires, but we'll just have to wait and see. But for now, Christian, Ted, thanks a lot for joining me today and sharing your insights into the BGC's event last week. And to the audience, thank you very much for tuning into today's episode of iGaming Daily. And join us again tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.