Q&A: Nick Rust on finding a credible mix of industry voices for the Industry Forum

EGR: What appealed to you about leading the Industry Forum?

Nick Rust (NR): I’d looked at the industry and been interested in assisting the Gambling Commission (GC) previously. When this role came up, I was quite keen to pull together a group of people who would be able to provide advice and guidance to the regulator. 

I’ve operated in the industry all my working life until I left Ladbrokes in 2015 to join the British Horseracing Authority as CEO. I had a shop-floor-to-boardroom career, largely at betting operators, and then I was able to add the experience of being in charge of a regulator of the horseracing industry. The two areas hopefully have given me a fairly unique blend of skills and knowledge.

EGR: What experience do the forum members bring to the table?

NR: It was launched in December last year, and by the time we’d gone through interviews, we selected a group of people in February and got going in March. We had about 45 applications from across most of the industry segments. The group isn’t designed to be representative in the same way, for example, as one of the trade bodies would be. But we wanted to have a mix of experience and skills that would be seen by any part of the industry as credible. We’ve got land-based betting and gaming operators, online betting and gaming operators plus suppliers. I haven’t got anyone around the table from society lotteries, but you couldn’t fit everyone in.

We have a good group of people who can lift their heads up high enough to look to the future, along with real hands-on operational experience. So, we’re able to help strategically, but also inform and advise the GC on operational issues where it is considering policy.

EGR: How as a group do you hope to help the sector?

NR: We are an advisory body. Each of the individuals around the table have signed up to the Nolan Principles . We’ve had to sign non-disclosure agreements so we can, in effect, act on the inside for the GC alongside the other advisory bodies. 

What’s been interesting for me is how I lead and set the tone that we are not a representative group. We are not lobbying or banging the drum. We are there to advise. I’m hoping we gain, as we’ve started to, sufficient trust from the GC’s executives and its board that they will come to us in advance of setting policy and give us sight of things, warts and all, knowing they can trust us. 

We’re not scoring political points. We want good regulation. We want good outcomes for licensed operators and consumers as well. Hopefully the Commission is starting to see that it can trust our input, and we can help them to frame regulation and policy in the right way.

EGR: Have you seen any policy changes as a result of the forum’s discussions?

NR: Most of the work we’ve been doing is forward-looking, but I’d be very confident that we’ve helped shape a number of things that the industry will see and deal with. We have also helped ensure unlicensed gambling is being focused on with greater vigour at the GC. 

EGR: What have been the other topics of discussion so far?

NR: We’ve talked about the Gambling Survey of Great Britain and how to make sure we can assist with the follow-up action points identified in Professor Patrick Sturgis’ report. There have also been discussions around the GC’s tone of voice and the way it communicates. We’ve talked about customer interactions around money laundering and making sure customers are being protected. There have also been conversations about financial checks.

Our job is to build trust with the GC so it can have industry insight ahead of setting regulation without the pressure of having to front up with industry bodies. Part of our role is to deliver feedback, for example with the Gambling Survey of Great Britain, the GC promised that if some of the data there was misused, it would follow up and deal with the issues concerned.