The Gambling Commission has appointed Ruth Evans as its permanent chair, ending a search that began when Marcus Boyle left the role in January 2025 and Charles Counsell stepped in as interim chair.
Evans, founder of Stop Scams UK and a former chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, takes up the position on 30 September for a five-year term. DCMS secretary of state Lisa Nandy made the appointment under the Gambling Act 2005, assisted by an advisory assessment panel.
The role carries a salary of £85,000 per annum for a two-day-a-week commitment, according to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Nandy thanked Counsell for his stewardship, saying: “He has been a passionate and diligent chair, and we owe him our gratitude.”
Evans arrives with a regulatory résumé built largely outside gambling. She chaired the Bar Standards Board, spent nine years as a lay member of the General Medical Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee, and served as a non-executive director for the Serious Fraud Office. Her most cited credential is chairing the steering group that delivered the industry code reimbursing victims of authorised push payment bank transfer scams, work she continues through Stop Scams UK.
“I am delighted to have been appointed chair of the Gambling Commission at a time when its role in keeping gambling fair, safe and crime-free is more important than ever,” Evans said. “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.”
A leadership table finally filled
The appointment closes one of three vacancies that had left the UKGC without a permanent chair, chief executive or executive director simultaneously. Andrew Rhodes departed as CEO in April, with Sarah Gardner holding the post on an acting basis, and executive director Tim Miller announced his own exit in June, with DCMS civil servant Sarah Fox seconded to cover his remit.
The churn has coincided with ministerial turnover at DCMS, where Vicky Foxcroft MP replaced Baroness Twycross as gambling minister under Andy Burnham’s government. It has also landed squarely inside the implementation phase of the UK Gambling Act reforms, with the government’s move to revoke the ‘aim to permit’ principle raising questions over whether a wholesale new gambling act will be needed.
Evans’ consumer-protection and financial-crime background positions her to weigh in on the Commission’s ongoing financial risk assessment pilot and the broader regulatory proposals now working through the policy pipeline. With the chair role filled, attention turns to the still-vacant permanent CEO position beneath acting chief Sarah Gardner.
Source: Next.io
When he is not analysing the latest compliance updates or dissecting quarterly operator results, Florian follows Bundesliga football closely and maintains a healthy skepticism toward anyone claiming to have cracked a winning betting system. He brings a grounded, insider-aware perspective to his writing and is always more interested in the structural story behind the headline than the headline itself.