The word doing the rounds within Westminster is that, after the Olympic Games, the UK Gambling Commission will be taken out of the responsibilities of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Recognising perhaps the wide divergence within the industries covered by the DCMS, the government will pull the Gambling Commission away and make it the responsibility of another ministry.
That has set the speculation going about the likely destination for the government body which currently runs the UK’s gambling industry. It is well known within political circles – although both would probably vehemently deny it – that the Gambling Commission and the DCMS don’t exactly get along well.
So where would it go? The betting appears to be on either the Home Office, where the old Gaming Board was situated, or with the Treasury, with the odds fairly evenly split between the two. The Home Office might consider itself more of the traditional home of the gambling industry’s governing body, but equally the Treasury would argue that the roots of the Gambling Act lie in taxation and therefore the Treasury is a more natural fit.
