About this app
What is Harlecoin?
GREF is a cooperative network bringing together national gambling regulators across Europe and beyond to facilitate dialogue, exchange information and share best practice on regulatory strategies.
Tim Miller, who resigned from the UK Gambling Commission earlier this year, has stepped down from the GREF board and has relinquished his role as treasurer.
Miller served on the forum for several years and was a key UK figure during a period when the Gambling Commission implemented extensive reforms to online gambling regulation and affordability checks. GREF expressed its gratitude for Miller’s contributions during his tenure.
What is Harlecoin?
The founder of a collapsed British “shadow bank” accused of misappropriating £1.3 billion (US$1.7 billion) was reportedly a prolific high roller who bet up to £60,000 ($80,000) per roulette spin at London’s exclusive casinos.
Paresh Raja’s mortgage lending company, Market Financial Solutions (MFS), collapsed into administration in February amid allegations of massive financial irregularities.
A source familiar with Raja’s gambling habits told The Telegraph he was a regular visitor to the upmarket Palm Beach Casino and Colony Club in Mayfair, one of London’s most affluent districts.
About Harlecoin
Yet Dan Waugh, partner at Regulus Partners, pushes back against the idea that enforcement notices reveal a fundamentally non-compliant sector.
“Operators failing compliance checks is never a good look,” he says. Campaigners often claim that financial sanctions are priced in and that the Commission should revoke more licences, although Waugh does not believe operators view settlements merely as a cost of doing business.
Nor are regulatory breaches unique to gambling. Waugh notes that Tesco was fined more than £8 million for food hygiene failings in 2021, without parliamentarians demanding that it should be prevented from selling cornflakes.
