European Gaming Lawyer magazine Autumn 2015 | Page 23

spent the week before the interview racing
round casinos, bingo halls and betting
shops.” Evidently, she qualifies for the
marathon in achieving her quick study of
the industry.
She stated, “In 2013 we took over
responsibility for regulating the National
Lottery, and in 2014, with the 2014 revision
to the 2005 act, we became responsible for
licensing and regulating overseas operators
operating in Great Britain.” The Commission
now has about three thousand licensees
and oversees a domestic market (including
the national lottery) of well over £10 billion
in gross gambling revenue net of prizes.
Commissioner Williams has indeed “guided
her country through an unprecedented
period of growth and modernisation.”

operators, from lotteries to in-play betting,
sports betting corruption and fantasy
football, and the impact of technological
developments. For her, it is a challenge to
try to anticipate and to prepare to deal with
emerging risks to players or to the public
interest.
Regulating is, to Commissioner Williams,
also finding the right balance between
getting to know and understand the
industry subjectively and maintaining the
objectivity and degree of distance necessary
to act in the public’s and not the industry’s
interest “except to the extent they coincide.”
Also related to achieving the right balance in
regulation, she emphasises the importance
of “determining the minimum level of
regulatory intrusion or burden consistent

resented the new Commission and its
authority. “One irate operator got in touch
with a licensing officer who happened
to be a woman, didn’t like the advice he
was given, demanded to speak to her
manager, and then her manager and then
the Director of Licensing, all of whom
were women. Finally in exasperation
at not getting the answer he wanted, he
demanded to speak to the CEO. He was
told, ‘fine we will get her to call you back.’
‘Not another bloody woman,’ he replied,
slammed the phone down, and never called
the Commission again.” She said, “I quite
like the idea of ‘another bloody woman’ on
my tombstone and of handing my position
over to one, my successor Sarah Harrison.”
Concluding the interview by asking

I had literally never been in any licensed gambling premises in my
life. I spent the week before the interview racing round casinos,
bingo halls and betting shops
In an interview for this profile, when
asked if she had a moment of realisation that
she wished to join the gaming community,
her candid response was, “Not really. I
had left the civil service and was starting
to pursue a portfolio career when a city
commercial lawyer I had come to like and
respect while working in rail privatisation,
told me he had become a gaming board
commissioner, and that it was a truly
fascinating industry. He informed me that
they would shortly be looking for a CEO
for the new Gambling Commission. I am
not sure I would have seen the gambling
industry as where I wanted to be for the
next decade, but he was absolutely right: it is
a fascinating industry.”
For Jenny Williams, her greatest challenge
as a regulator has been the range and
complexity of issues, spanning a spectrum
from the individual bookie to some of the
world’s largest li