Tim Miller, the UK’s top man when it comes to regulating gambling, took a sharp stance against tech firm Meta.
Addressing an audience of gambling stakeholders at ICE Barcelona, the UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) Executive Director chose a single question to be the basis for his whole speech. This question was “whose side are you on?”.
The extended version of this sounds more like ‘whose side are you on in the fight against the black market’, and Miller was clear that he thinks Meta – the owner of Facebook and Instagram – has blurred the lines.
Not Meta’s first rodeo
This is not the first time Meta has found itself on the opposite side of conversations about ethics and transparency, certainly not from a gambling perspective.
In July last year, campaigners from a UK-based NGO raised concerns about the tech platform’s policies on flagging safer gambling messages as more risky than gambling adverts themselves – which, as a result, leads to gambling marketing enjoying more visibility.
Miller’s speech took this argument one step further, focusing on the amount of black market advertising found on Meta’s platforms, and particularly those tailored to promote “non-GamStop” casinos – with GamStop being the UK’s national self-exclusion registry.
Such adverts are easily trackable even by regular Meta users, Miller added, thanks to a publicly available marketing database that allows for direct searches through keywords.
Yet, such ads keep appearing on two of the biggest social media platforms, which Miller criticised by saying: “If we can find them, then so can Meta: they simply choose not to look.”
“It could leave you with the impression that they are quite happy to turn a blind eye and continue taking money from criminals and scammers until someone shouts about it. So it does leave Meta with the question of ‘Whose side are you on?’
“The consumers and users of your platforms, many of whom are seeking to escape gambling harm, or the criminals and con artists who are using your platforms to prey on vulnerable people right in front of your eyes and whose clutches you risk pushing those vulnerable people into?”
2026 will be a year of action
Besides this heavily charged criticism against Meta, the UKGC Director also hinted at tightening the scrutiny over licensed game suppliers whose products are also found on offshore websites – albeit this time around Miller was a bit softer in his critique, explaining that “pulling the legal action lever” will not always be practical or possible.
In conclusion, the speech ended on a positive note, reminding attendees of the £26m in UKGC funding set aside by the last UK Budget to fuel the fight against the black market over the next three years.
Finally, Miller also highlighted that the UKGC is expecting another major milestone this year, with the Crime and Policing Bill currently being reviewed in the House of Lords. If and when enacted, this law will give the UK regulator autonomous IP blocking powers, alleviating it from its current reliance on Google.