Gibraltar News

No 'Backdoor for Corruption in British Sport'
Recent comments made by Lord Faulkner have sparked outrage within Gibraltar's gaming industry. The Labour MP was quoted in the UK's Guardian newspaper as saying Gibraltar's "light-touch regulatory regime" was providing a potential backdoor for corruption in British sport. These comments are seen by many within Gibraltar's gaming industry as being largely unsubstantiated and a mere attempt to shift the blame for the UK's own failings in this matter.

Lord Faulkner's comments centred on allegations made in November 2006 by a former employee of Gibraltar-based gaming outfit Victor Chandler International (VCI). The unnamed whistle-blower alleged that a number of managers of various Premier League Football Clubs had been placing significant bets on English football matches. Victor Chandler himself, known as "the gentleman bookmaker," has a reputation for not wishing to refuse anyone a bet. However, if the allegations were true, this would place VCI in direct contravention of Football Association (FA) rule E8 that forbids participants from making bets on competitions in which they are involved.

On Sept. 10 of last year, whilst Gibraltar celebrated its National Day, VCI's Chief Executive Michael Carlton met with Lord Faulkner as well as the FA's Director of Governance Jonathan Hall. It was at this meeting that Hall asked Carlton to sign an information-sharing agreement in VCI's name. The bookmaker naturally had reservations about this, and a VCI spokesman insisted that regulating football managers was not their problem and should really be the job of the FA. According to VCI, the issue needed to be dealt with "on an industry-wide basis, not as an agreement with one bookmaker prompted by false allegations based on fabricated evidence."

Lord Faulkner's allegations are indeed of a serious nature, and if he has indeed passed the blame without giving serious thought to the issue, it is no wonder that his comments have irritated members of Gibraltar's Regulatory Authority (GRA) who oversee the operations of all licensees of the Rock. Among other things, the GRA deals with the regulation of all remote gaming licenses issued by the Government of Gibraltar, and has recently appointed the ex-director of operations for the British Gambling Commission, Phil Brear, as its new head of gambling regulation.

Add to this the Gibraltar Gambling Act 2005, which came into operation on Oct. 26, 2006, and repealed local legislation originally enacted in 1958. This new legislation, which in many ways mirrored the UK's, modernised Gibraltar's gaming laws and created a statutory licensing and regulatory framework that is apt for a leading online gaming jurisdiction. Brear, who was himself involved in developing the UK's own gambling legislation, will be instrumental in ensuring that Gibraltar's own regulatory framework continues to mirror that of the UK. It's hardly the amateur operation that Lord Faulkner appears to be describing.

Gibraltar successfully made the UK government's "white list" of acceptable gambling jurisdictions in 2007, and prides itself on having a framework in place that encourages the highest standards of good governance amongst its remote gaming licensees. This sentiment is shared by Gibraltar's Governor Sir Robert Fulton, who was impressed by the level of responsibility he has witnessed on visits to various gaming firms on the Rock. Nevertheless, Lord Faulkner continues to demand action from the UK's Ministry for Culture, Media, and Sport against foreign-based bookmakers who refuse to enter into information-sharing agreements - a demand that will impact upon many Gibraltar-based gaming firms. The repercussions of this are yet to be known, but it is clear that the GRA will stand up to any amount of scrutiny to prove that it is as committed as the UK is to keeping corruption at bay.

Tristan Cano lives and writes about the gaming industry in Gibraltar.