There’s a heavy spot light on regulations right now, as the gambling industry deals with sudden new changes they must comply with, and wait with baited breath on what will come next. To understand what’s happening in the European market, our Becky Liggero Fontana caught up with Tom Galanis, Director of TAG Media and Co-Founder of First Look Games.

They first spoke about the U.K., and Galanis noted that new expectations haven’t been coming so much from the U.K. Gambling Commission. “In the U.K., slightly oddly in the last couple of months, it hasn’t been so much the regulator there to say, driving new restrictions, new rules, for which operators need to abide by, it’s actually been the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), the new trade association…to take certain steps to protect vulnerable people spending too much time, too much money gambling,” he said. “So what has happened is that the Betting and Gaming Council, operators, which accounts for I think some 90% in terms of revenues in the U.K. gambling market, all those operators have agreed to halt above the line advertising, which includes television and radio, I think from the fifth of May, and that’s obviously welcome news to some that was see gambling advertisement be restricted in this country going forward.”

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That’s not a bad thing, necessarily. “So for the short term obviously, that the hope is that it removes the spotlight from us as an industry and shows us in the best light, doing the right thing,” he said. “However my concern is actually that this is built on emotive subjectivity, rather than data led, objective research which is sorely lacking in this matter…So what I want to see more of, frankly, is more objectively let research to underpin any future decision-making when it comes to further restrictions of restrictions of advertising.”