The UK’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee has unexpectedly intervened in Britain’s long-running affordability checks debate, demanding answers from the Gambling Commission.
The cross-party committee wants to know what evidence underpins the Commission’s decision to press ahead with new “financial risk assessments” for gambling customers.
Lawmakers are also pressing the regulator on whether more or fewer customers will be required to provide financial documents than under current arrangements.
Committee chair Dame Caroline Dinenage struck a balancing act, stressing that people experiencing gambling-related harm should receive appropriate protection while warning that regulation must also recognise the industry’s economic contribution.
The British Horseracing Authority has been raising similar concerns for years, arguing affordability checks could push customers towards unregulated sites while reducing tax revenues.
The BHA’s frustrations even prompted an unusual Freedom of Information request seeking details of the Commission’s pilot programme after reports emerged of difficulties matching consumer data across credit reference agencies.
The Gambling Commission insists its eventual system will be almost entirely “frictionless”, with customers unaware checks are taking place in all but a tiny minority of cases.
Critics have long argued the regulator has offered little hard evidence to support those assurances, making Parliament’s intervention a potentially significant moment in the debate.
Separately, a new book reviewed by the Financial Times argues that the explosion of online sports betting cannot be separated from the Premier League’s transformation into a global entertainment giant.
Darragh McGee’s Imitation Games traces the industry’s rapid expansion to the early 2000s, when the Gambling Act 2005 helped open the floodgates just as football’s popularity was surging worldwide.
McGee argues that free bets, bonus credits and sophisticated behavioural design are carefully engineered to keep users engaged as long as possible, with successful bettors often finding their stakes quietly restricted.
The review concludes that football and gambling have become financially intertwined to such an extent that separating them will be extraordinarily difficult, even as shirt sponsorship rules tighten.
In the United States, a White House teleprompter operator has been accused of profiting from advance knowledge of President Donald Trump’s prepared speeches on prediction markets platform Kalshi.
Gabriel Perez, who has worked alongside Donald Trump since 2016, is under investigation by US regulators over allegations he earned close to $100,000 trading on Kalshi’s so-called “mention markets.”
These contracts allow users to trade on whether Trump will utter specific words during public appearances, with Kalshi’s internal surveillance systems reportedly detecting unusual transaction patterns linked to Perez.
Around $90,000 in alleged profits has reportedly been frozen, Perez has been placed on unpaid administrative leave, and he has been permanently banned from the platform.
The case underscores the increasingly unusual integrity challenges facing prediction markets, where participants with privileged access to real-world information hold an obvious advantage over ordinary traders.
Whether Perez ultimately faces criminal charges remains unclear, but the investigation adds to a growing list of cases raising serious regulatory questions about the future of prediction markets.
