18^th March 2026

Madam Speaker, this Bill must be one of the most carefully and expertly considered and consulted-upon Bills in the legislative history of this House, not least because, as I acknowledged in my address to UK Parliamentarians in October last year, it was drafted under the careful and experienced pen of Sir Peter Caruana KC.

Madam Speaker, I would also like to acknowledge the constructive engagement of the Honourable Members opposite, particularly the Honourable Mr Clinton, with whom I discussed the Bill and shared the various proposed amendments that I will be bringing forward at Committee Stage.

The Gambling Bill has its roots in the 2016 Report “A vision for continuing success” which was a review of the gambling legislative, licensing and regulatory regime and related issues.

The authors of that report were Sir Peter Caruana, Peter Montegriffo, Peter Isola and Peter Howitt.

Three of those Peters, together with my predecessor Albert Isola have continued to act as policy advisers on the development of this Bill.

There have been delays: 2016 was the year of the Brexit vote, followed by a long transitional period which eventually saw the migration of EU gambling business away from Gibraltar. 2019 was the start of the Moneyval/FATF process which is well documented. 2020 saw the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and during this period the global online gambling landscape has changed significantly. Further still, last year we were involved in lobbying the UK Government in respect of the then proposed gaming tax increases (now law).

Alongside this, we have seen the development of cloud IT infrastructure providers (a challenge for our own local providers), a shift towards gambling companies adopting a multi-jurisdictional approach and many more jurisdictions moving away from a restricted or monopoly model, to one where local licences have been offered to commercial gambling companies on an open market and non- discriminatory basis.

An Act is needed that brings into scope any business where substantive management or control of that operation, in or from Gibraltar, is present; rather than an overreliance on the location of technology.

Furthermore, the nature of the industry B2B supply chain has changed. No longer are there a limited number of games or platform providers, but a plethora of competing multi-jurisdictional suppliers harnessing accelerating technological developments and providing plug-in innovative solutions. Some of these B2B suppliers have chosen Gibraltar as their primary base.

The marketing of gambling services has also developed, not least in the area of social media promotion. Player acquisition and retention are the lifeblood of the industry, but marketing gambling products and customer relationship management is controversial and has the capacity, if unchecked and unregulated, to damage the reputation of the industry and the wider regulatory regime. Gibraltar is a centre of excellence for gambling marketing, but some of that activity currently sits outside the scope of regulation and needs to be brought within regulatory control.

Using gross gambling yield as a proxy, the Gibraltar gambling sector is over 75% UK facing and, whilst not slavishly following regulatory developments in the UK, note needs to be taken of certain developments and adjustments made accordingly.

All of this has had to be managed by the Gambling Commissioner and his staff, in collaboration with the industry and its advisers, under legislation and a wider regulatory framework that has proved to be remarkably flexible and robust, but is now stretched to a point where modernisation, already recommended in the original report, is overdue.

In economic terms, the gambling sector provides a significant element of GDP and despite the documented headwinds, the sector has remained resilient in terms of employee numbers, an increasing number of B2C and B2B licensees, licence fees and gambling duty. There have been pressures on CIT yield as operators are compelled to move in the direction of jurisdictional diversification and there has been pressure on the “point of supply” model. The recently announced UK gambling tax changes have brought further pressure to bear on the sector.

The current licensing and regulatory regime for gambling activities enacted in the Gambling Act 2005, combined with Government policies, has successfully achieved Gibraltar’s macro-economic objectives (sustainable, growing and reputably conducted economic activity) and Gibraltar’s regulatory objectives (the protection of Gibraltar’s reputation and the protection of consumer interests) in respect of online gambling activities. The industry and its regulation in Gibraltar have achieved internationally recognised success. We want that to continue in an ever-changing environment.

Now is the time for an enhanced and more flexible regulatory regime that has as its base a clear set of regulatory objectives. These are:

• the preservation of confidence in gambling markets;
• the promotion of gambling that is fair, responsible and safer for consumers;
• preventing gambling being a source of crime, being associated with crime or being used to support or proliferate financial crime;
• the promotion and protection of the public interest of Gibraltar including (but not limited to) its reputation and macro-economic interests.

The Bill has the following key features:

• It provides interpretation of key industry and product definitions;
• It defines the role responsibilities and powers of the Gambling Commissioner, his staff and the Minister acting as Licensing Authority;
• It defines the scope of regulated and exempt gambling activities, bringing into scope a wider cohort of the B2B supply chain including marketing services (about which I will say something further);
• It sets out the provisions and conditions for licensing and licensing types and the need for substantive presence amongst a wider set of threshold conditions;
• It provides for a framework for the regulation of key individuals and post-holders;
• It codifies the regime for the control of regulated entities and individuals and reporting and approval requirements;
• It provides for information and evidence gathering powers;
• It provides for a greater range of enforcement and sanctioning powers, with this being balanced by the establishment of a Gambling Appeals Tribunal;
• It sets out a clear administrative framework for the supervision of the industry but provides the flexibility for the Minister to meet new regulatory challenges through regulation (e.g. to bring a new type of gambling offering within scope) and for the Gambling Commission, after consultation, to issue relevant codes of practice (e.g. a social responsibility code).

An amendment to the Bill in respect of the power to impose gambling duties has been drafted in order to remediate an inadvertent omission from the Bill.

This degree of regulatory flexibility in excluding or bringing into scope the increasing number of gambling derivative models, ensures regulation does not drive away inwards investment whilst at the same time being able to deal with arising consumer protection. This was a reason for one of the amendments to the Bill at Committee stage which takes free prize draws for e.g. houses or cars outside the scope of gambling, a position which is consistent with UK law. This allows prize draw companies to consider Gibraltar as a jurisdiction for inwards investment. Nevertheless, the ability remains to bring different models into scope where this is deemed necessary.

To be clear, the powers granted to the Gambling Commissioner as sectoral supervisor for anti-money laundering and terrorist financing remain unchanged by the Bill; as these powers are derived from the Proceeds of Crime Act and are dealt with under that regime.

One of the practical weaknesses of the current Act is that it only allows for the nuclear option of licence suspension or revocation for breaches, whereas the new Bill sets out a range of proportionate sanctions and allows the Gambling Commissioner to deploy a more structured and statutory approach to regulatory investigations and enquiries.

However, the new Act will not change the business supportive culture of Gibraltar. If you are prepared to be a good corporate citizen, paying your taxes, protecting consumers and guarding against the facilitation of financial crime then there is a welcome for you in the jurisdiction. We are open for business and will continue to be innovative.

I am also able to inform the House that the Bill has gone through an extensive formal and informal consultation process with key stakeholders. The Bill very much follows the drafting and structural style of our Financial Services and Fair-Trading Act which will hopefully align the regulatory approach of our key supervisory agencies.

There is collective industry support for the implementation of a new Gambling Act, and the Gambling Commissioner will be structured and supportive of the industry in how the underlying regulatory framework will be introduced during the transition period. In this respect I am very grateful to the Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association and the GBGA Secretary General, Nicholas Macias, for their constructive engagement and support throughout.

In conclusion this Bill provides a flexible framework for the regulation of gambling in Gibraltar. Its enabling powers allow for future proofing as the pace of technological and innovative change quickens.

However, the passing of the Bill is only the first stage. Whilst the new framework is now broadly understood by the industry and its advisers, the main nature of enquiries are now centred on transition and implementation. Work has already gone into thinking about the new regime and a digitalisation project has commenced which is intended to improve the effectiveness of the interface with the industry. For example, allowing, in time, for licensees to apply online. The Gambling Commissioner and his staff now have a lot of heavy lifting to do to enable the transition process.

What will not change is Gibraltar’s support for an important sector of the economy and a pragmatic approach to regulation. There is very much a focus on sustainability and controlled growth of the industry in Gibraltar against a challenging and ever-changing landscape.

Madam Speaker, I have already addressed this House on the recent changes to UK gaming and betting duty, and I do not intend to restate those matters today. However, I do wish to update the House on the work that has been undertaken since those changes were announced just before Christmas, as part of our wider diversification drive. In this respect, we have accelerated work that was already well underway to attract new business to Gibraltar.

In January of this year, I attended ICE in Barcelona, the largest gaming conference in the world, where I met with potential investors. I am pleased to report that I expect a licence application will shortly be submitted to the Gambling Commissioner.

Separately, I recently attended Consensus Hong Kong, the leading digital asset conference in Asia, where we were again approached on behalf of potential investors interested in this sector. We are now working closely with those parties with a view to licensing in Gibraltar.

Madam Speaker, we are working intensively and at pace to bridge, as far as possible, the gap created by the recent UK decision.

Whilst the corporate tax revenues because of the UK tax changes cannot be fully restored by the end of this year through new entrants alone, the ongoing growth of the sector will create important future revenue streams.

Finally, Madam Speaker, I wish to place on record my gratitude to the Gambling Commissioner and his staff; to the staff of my Ministry, particularly as I have extended the ambit of the Gibraltar Finance Centre, now run exclusively by civil servants, to include gambling alongside financial services, thereby providing them with valuable professional exposure and experience in this important area of our economy; to my constituency staff, who ensure that I have been supported even during the difficult period leading up to the UK budget changes; and to public servant colleagues across the Ministry who have joined me regularly at important (and at times, difficult) meetings over many months, including engagements with U.K. Treasury.

I have sought to promote inclusivity and invested much Ministerial time to ensure the development of skills and experience across all levels of the Ministry within the civil service complement. Whether in relation to Moneyval matters, taxation, gambling, financial services, or advancing AI initiatives, we have focused on nurturing and developing a strong pool of talent through a multidisciplinary approach. This is separate, and in addition, to the work we have done through the Ministry to support and build up resources (and where necessary, expertise) within the Tax Office.

I commend this Bill to the House.