Compliance
Regulatory Returns
Definition
The periodic reports a licensed operator must file with its regulator: gross gaming revenue and tax, customer numbers and activity, complaints and disputes, safer-gambling measures such as limits set and self-exclusions, anti-money-laundering statistics, and other data the licence specifies. The regulator’s routine view of the business and the basis of published industry statistics.
Key takeaways
- Regulatory returns are the periodic reports a licensee files: revenue and tax, customers, complaints, safer-gambling and anti-money-laundering data.
- Published industry statistics in Britain and state revenue reports in the US are compiled from them.
- Figures must reconcile to accounts and tax and use the regulator’s definitions; late or wrong returns are licence breaches.
- Regulators use returns to find outliers and target supervision; reporting a measure means managing it.
Why it matters
Regulators run on returns. A licensee reports on a monthly, quarterly or annual cycle, in a prescribed format, the figures the regulator uses to supervise it and to understand the market: revenue by product for tax and for the industry statistics the regulator publishes; active customers, new accounts and closures; the number of customers with deposit limits, the interactions made, the self-exclusions registered; complaints received and escalated; suspicious activity reports and due-diligence outcomes; and, in Britain, a wide range of additional data on customer protection. Britain's Gambling Commission publishes industry statistics compiled from returns, the American states publish monthly revenue and tax by operator from theirs, and analysts and journalists build the public picture of the industry from both.
For the operator, returns are a data and controls exercise. The figures must reconcile to the accounts and the tax filings, the definitions must match the regulator's (which differ from the operator's own reporting), and late or inaccurate returns are licence breaches that enforcement decisions cite. Larger operators automate the extraction from the platform's reporting layer; the compliance function reviews and signs; and a change in the regulator's return format, which happens regularly as regulators ask for more safer-gambling data, is a project.
Returns are also a lever. Regulators have used the data to identify outliers (an operator whose customers set far fewer limits than the market average, or whose self-exclusion numbers are low for its size) and to target inspections and enforcement, and the requirement to report a measure is, in practice, a requirement to manage it.
Frequently asked questions
How often are regulatory returns filed?
It depends on the regulator and the data. Tax-related returns are usually monthly; broader operational and safer-gambling returns quarterly or annually. Britain has moved to quarterly returns for most licensees.
What data do safer-gambling returns include?
Typically the number of customers using deposit, loss and time limits, the customer interactions carried out and their outcomes, self-exclusions and time-outs registered, and affordability or enhanced checks completed.
Are regulatory returns public?
Individual returns are generally confidential, but regulators publish aggregate industry statistics from them, and American state regulators publish operator-level revenue and tax figures monthly.