Tim Miller, the former Executive Director of Policy and Research at the UK Gambling Commission, has launched GamReg Consulting and taken a strategic adviser role at Gaming Compliance International (GCI). The move follows a decade in which he led the 2023 white paper reforms and the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms. It places a former regulatory official at the centre of commercial monitoring tools and policy advice sold to regulators and operators, raising questions about how former public officials can shape the systems their former watchdogs use.
From UK Gambling Commission to new consultancy
Miller spent ten years at the Commission. He led the white paper programme, covering age verification, game design, marketing controls and financial risk checks, and oversaw the launch of the Gambling Survey for Great Britain. He has described the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms as his proudest achievement, crediting it with bringing financial services into harm prevention and encouraging challenger banks such as Starling to offer gambling blocks.
Miller announced his departure in June and completed it last month. GamReg Consulting's early clients include GCI and Spectrum Gaming Group. He told iGaming Business that the reaction since launching, including at G2E in Las Vegas, had been 'absolutely fantastic'. He also said he was not looking to escape the Commission but was 'ready for the next challenge', and that he never sought the chief executive job because it required at least a three-year commitment.
GCI advisory role and product plans
GCI announced on 24 September 2026 that Miller would offer an independent regulatory perspective on its transaction and market monitoring tools as the company expands globally. According to the Gaming Compliance International press release, he will work directly with chief executive Matt Holt, support international market expansion, help ensure GCI products meet regulators' evolving needs, and assess product development with a regulatory lens.
GCI, which launched in 2025, says it supplies regulators with platforms for transaction monitoring and market intelligence. During the 2026 World Cup, it provided market monitoring insights to regulators, and in one U.S. state it identified more than 2,000 active operators, most of them unlicensed according to the company's release. GamReg Consulting describes itself as a UK-based international advisory firm that assists governments and gambling regulators in designing regulatory systems, with a focus on stronger licensed markets, tackling illegal gambling and improving consumer protection.
Miller on illegal market and survey data
Miller said the Commission's biggest challenge is the illegal market, but he warned against expecting a regulator to handle it alone. He compared illegal gambling to other organised criminal networks such as the international drugs trade, and said nobody would expect a small Birmingham-based regulator to crack that by itself. Law enforcement, governments and technology companies must play a role too, he said. If regulators are expected to defeat illegal gambling single-handedly, he added, 'we're destined to fail'.
He defended the Gambling Survey for Great Britain against parts of the industry that prefer the Health Survey for England. Some critics have stayed quiet about that survey's limitations, he said, even though the Health Survey points to a rising rate of problem gambling while the GSGB suggests a broadly stable one. No single source provides a complete and definitive view, he argued.
Financial risk assessments: defence and thresholds
Miller said no white paper measure generated more operator resistance than financial risk assessments. He blamed the labelling: opponents called them affordability checks, which he sees as a different and difficult tool. The pilot identified a group of people at risk of significant harm who were not caught by other methods, he said. Once that data existed, the Commission needed to respond, even though it could affect revenue.
He argued that if financial risk checks are implemented as the industry is expected to, consumers should face far fewer document requests, reducing friction for most while identifying those at risk. He rejected reports that the Commission board delayed its decision on the checks as 'inaccurate'. The first phase applies only to the largest operators and to customers whose net deposits exceed £5,000 in a rolling 24-hour period, or £2,500 for under-25s, with no early enforcement. Final thresholds are £1,000 in 24 hours or £3,000 over 90 days. Miller declined to speculate on practical effects under those terms but said where risk evidence falls, regulatory burdens can fall with it.
Implications for regulatory tools and standards
Miller's move from regulator to private supplier means a former official will now help shape tools that regulators and industry may rely on. GCI chief executive Matt Holt said adding Miller shows regulators that GCI understands their challenges. Miller said he knows regulators' needs continue to evolve. These are company statements, not independent verification. Neither announcement sets out post-employment restrictions or how his advisory work is separated from his former UKGC role, and no external regulator has commented in the announcements. That leaves open a broader question about how former public officials should help build compliance and market monitoring systems for the watchdogs they once served.
