European Gaming Lawyer magazine Autumn 2015 | Page 22

Regulator of the Year 2015 – Europe
Jenny Williams
Commissioner and Chief Executive,
Gambling Commission, Great Britain

COMMISSIONER JENNY WILLIAMS’
outstanding career includes decades in public
service and regulation. Her career spans posts
in six government departments including
water and rail privitisation, local government
finance, public sector housing, and business
taxation, culminating in being the first nonlawyer Director General and board member
at the Lord Chancellor’s Office responsible for
the Judicial Group which managed judicial
appointments and personnel issues.
In 2004, she was appointed to establish
and run the UK Gambling Commission to
regulate all commercial gambling other than
spread betting and the national lottery. By
2006, when the Commission moved from
London to Birmingham, it had expanded

22 | European Gaming Lawyer | Autumn Issue | 2015

from sixty to the almost three hundred
employees needed to accomplish the
daunting task by 2007 of relicensing casino,
bingo and machine suppliers and licensing
over two thousand betting and arcade
operators for the first time.
Under Jenny Williams’ leadership
the Commission then made significant
improvements in the prevention of
underage gambling, reducing the supply of
illegal machines, and tackling sports betting
corruption. It also secured improvements
in the approach to research, education
and treatment for problem gambling and
supported the government in securing the
policy change to point-of-consumption
regulation of remote gambling in 2014.

After a first class honor’s degree in
economics at Cambridge, Mrs. Williams
worked as an economic advisor to the
Zambian government before undertaking
social policy research at Nuffield College,
Oxford. She was a non-executive director
of a water utility and is currently vice chair
of a leading homelessness charity. Among
her notable recognitions was receiving the
Lifetime Achievement Award from IAGA
for her exceptional contribution to the
world of gaming in 2015.
Commissioner Williams said of her early
introduction to the gaming industry that
when invited to interview for the CEO
position, “I had literally never been in any
licensed gambling premises in my life. I