(AsiaGameHub) –   One of the most prominent supporters of affordability checks for the UK gambling sector has called on the government to reverse its rollout plans, citing widespread concerns about how the policy is being put into practice.

Dr James Noyes, who publicly backed the reforms during 2020 and 2021 in his capacity as Senior Fellow at the Social Market Foundation, stated in an open letter addressed to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy that core requirements laid out in the original proposals have not been fulfilled.

Today I sent an open letter to the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, @lisanandy — calling on the Government to pause the implementation of financial risk assessments for bettors until a proper evaluation of the Gambling Commission’s pilot scheme has been published… pic.twitter.com/75IkUA1rOT

— James Noyes (@jranoyes) April 13, 2026

Specifically, he noted that calls for affordability checks, which were included as recommendations in the 2023 Gambling White Paper, were advanced on the condition that the checks would be ‘frictionless’ and that a dedicated gambling ombudsman would be established to guarantee ‘appropriate handling of customer complaints and protection of user rights’.

“I only backed affordability checks under the assumption that there would be sufficient oversight and assessment of how well they work, and that the checks would be conducted without unnecessary intrusion. But I am seeing a growing number of reports that the pilot programme has suffered from inconsistent datasets, ambiguous results and avoidable disruption for users,” Noyes wrote.

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has been operating a trial scheme for ‘financial risk assessments’ since September 2024, designed to test the feasibility of a two-tier check system aimed at identifying potential gambling-related harm. The regulator has not issued any public updates on the pilot since May 2025, however.

Noyes joins a growing cohort of critics speaking out against the current rollout plans for affordability checks, who warn the measures will be excessively intrusive and push gamblers away from licensed, regulated platforms.

He highlighted that multiple operators have reported that separate credit reference agencies return conflicting results for identical customers, alongside what they describe as an ‘inadequate volume of data to accurately build user risk profiles’.

A YouGov survey commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council additionally found that 65% of people who bet would be reluctant to submit personal paperwork such as bank statements as part of the financial check process.

These findings come with a caveat, though, as it is not known how many of the respondents would actually be affected by the threshold limits set for the checks.

Per the UKGC’s most recent update from May 2025, data from the pilot’s second phase showed that just one in every 1,000 customers would face disruption when going through the check process.

Noyes is now calling on the government to halt all plans to roll out the checks until a full independent evaluation is published and open to scrutiny by Members of Parliament. He has also proposed that the check threshold should be based on net losses rather than the current system of total stakes, which would cut the number of players eligible for checks.

For the pilot’s first phase, the threshold was set at £500 in net deposits across a 30-day window, before being reduced to £150 in February 2025, aligning with the proposals outlined in the white paper.

While Noyes emphasized that he wrote the letter in a personal capacity, his concerns hold considerable weight due to his senior position at the SMF. The think tank has long pushed for reforms to the UK gambling sector, including backing the substantial tax increase on remote gaming that was introduced as part of last year’s budget, announced by Rachel Reeves.

Alongside Noyes, the British Horseracing Association has also written to Nandy, calling for a pause to affordability checks due to specific worries about the effect the measures would have on the UK’s horseracing sector.