Before 2021, “regulatory settlements”, payments made by gambling operators for breaches of conditions, were intended to be used in support of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms. Since then however, payments have been directed towards ‘socially responsible purposes’. More than £92million has been handed out under this process. But the Gambling Commission has never carried out an assessment of the efficacy of this spending of whether it was even used for its intended purposes. This is despite Parliament pressing the Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission on the matter repeatedly. The Gambling Commission’s own rules state that “regulatory settlement funds will not be applied for the purposes of campaigning or lobbying.”[9] It has however repeatedly engaged in, and provided funds for campaigning and lobbying: · In 2022, former Chief Executive Andrew Rhodes told a meeting of the Advisory Board on Gambling Safety that “things have never been more favourable” for increased taxation on the sector and that the Gambling Commission could influence the Treasury.[10] · In 2021 the Gambling Commission awarded £140,050 to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research to conduct an evaluation of benefits and costs of gambling. The scope of the work was changed after the award was made without the Gambling Commission’s approval and went on to conclude that problem gamblers included people who have never gambled. When the report came under fire for its methodological flaws, the Gambling Commission refused to investigate and said it had no power to clawback funds if they were misused.[11] · In 2022, the chair of the Gambling Commission’s Advisory Board for Safer Gambling advised the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities that criticism of its cost figures was valid – but then intimated that accuracy in such matters was beside the point and that scrutiny of public health mortality claims was “a distraction from what matters to people and families harmed by gambling”.[12] · The Gambling Commission conducted a survey showing the rate of problem gambling to be 5-8 times higher than previous official estimates. In an official review of the data, a Professor of Quantitative Social Science at the London School of Economics found there was “a non-negligible risk that they substantially over-state the true level of gambling and gambling harm in the population”.[13] The Commission then issued a warning that the statistics could not be compared to estimates. [14] Nevertheless, the “new figures” continue to be used by organisations that the Gambling Commission funds. · The survey found that going those who visit art galleries and museums were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who did not.[15] · The Commission has stated that spending money on betting rather than going to the cinema is a gambling harm.[16] Producing and funding “research” of this nature does nothing to help elected representatives make informed decisions about the best way to regulate the industry.