Ruth Evans Named Gambling Commission Chair, Ending a 20-Month Interim

The government has given the Gambling Commission a permanent chair after an interim stretch the trade press puts at 20 months. Ruth Evans arrives from Stop Scams UK, the body that persuaded banks, telecoms firms and technology platforms to sit at the same table, and her first sentence on the job named the technology sector.

• The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has appointed Ruth Evans as Chair of the Gambling Commission for a five-year term beginning on 30 September 2026
• Evans is chair of Stop Scams UK, a collaboration between major banks, technology companies and telecoms firms, and was recently appointed chair of the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board
• She previously chaired the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority and was the first chair of the Bar Standards Board
• In 2018 she chaired the steering group that produced the voluntary industry code to reimburse victims of authorised push payment bank transfer scams
• The appointment ends an interim period that began in February 2025, when Charles Counsell OBE took the chair

A Consumer Protection Career, Not a Gambling One

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has appointed Ruth Evans as Chair of the Gambling Commission for a five-year term starting on 30 September, according to the government's announcement. She succeeds Charles Counsell OBE, who has held the chair on an interim basis since February 2025.

Evans is a regulatory figure rather than a gambling one. Her career spans more than four decades across charities, public regulatory bodies and financial oversight boards. She chaired the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which regulates MPs' pay and expenses, and was the first chair of the Bar Standards Board. She spent nine years as a lay member of the General Medical Council, chairing its Standards and Ethics Committee, and served as a non-executive director of the Serious Fraud Office.

Her most relevant recent work is in financial crime. In 2018 she chaired the steering group that delivered the voluntary industry code to reimburse victims of authorised push payment scams, the bank transfer frauds in which a customer is tricked into sending money themselves. She is currently chair of Stop Scams UK, which she describes as a collaboration between major banks, technology companies and telecoms firms, and has recently been appointed chair of the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said Evans "becomes Chair at this incredibly important time, supporting a sustainable, thriving industry with the essential protections needed to prevent harm", and thanked Counsell for what she called passionate and diligent leadership.

Evans said she was delighted to be appointed "at a time when its role in keeping gambling fair, safe and crime-free is more important than ever", and added a line that reads as a statement of method: "Throughout my career in consumer protection, I have seen that the best outcomes are achieved through effective collaboration between regulators, industry and the technology sector." She said she would look to encourage online safety for UK citizens while "supporting a responsible, innovative and sustainable gambling sector", and to build public confidence "by combining proportionate regulation with partnership and shared responsibility".

Counsell said Evans's regulatory and consumer experience would be invaluable to the board as the Commission continues its work to make gambling safer, fairer and crime-free.

The Stop Scams Model Is the Reason This Appointment Is Interesting

Stop Scams UK exists because fraud could not be fixed by regulating banks alone: the money moves through banks, but the approach happens on a platform and the call comes over a network, so all three had to be in the room. That is structurally the same problem the Commission has with illegal gambling, where the operator is offshore, the traffic comes from affiliates and social platforms, and the money moves through payment intermediaries. A chair whose signature achievement was getting a voluntary reimbursement code out of an industry that did not want one is a particular kind of appointment, and the technology sector reference in her first public sentence is unlikely to be accidental.

A Permanent Chair Arrives With Three Files Already Open

The Commission is mid-way through the staged rollout of financial risk assessments, it is enforcing hard enough to have suspended two operating licences last week, and it is being asked, by researchers and by parliamentarians, why the licensed sector's treatment of customer data sits so far outside the norm. None of those needed a permanent chair to proceed, but all of them benefit from one who can commit the board for five years rather than to the next review.

The Timing Is Fiscal as Much as Regulatory

Evans takes the chair weeks before an Autumn Budget in which gambling taxation is again in play, a year after remote gaming duty was raised to 40%. The Commission does not set tax, but it will be asked what any rise does to licensed-market share, and the honest answer requires data the Commission has not historically published in that form. A chair who spent the past decade building shared-responsibility frameworks may be more inclined than most to put numbers on the table rather than positions.

The Gambling Commission has had an interim chair for 20 months and no shortage of things to decide. It now has someone whose record is in getting reluctant industries to agree on something.