Remote Gambling Association head Clive Hawkswood this week publicly confirmed that he will step down in 2019 after fourteen years in the post. Current speculation is that this is slated to happen in January. Hawkswood had previously informed the RGA of his intentions.
Hawkswood has been head of the Remote Gambling Association since 2005 and will play a role before leaving in choosing the Association’s next director. Hawkswood has been at the helm during a long run of technological growth and change in online gambling and has seen the complexity and spread increase by orders of magnitude globally. Prior to working at the RGA, he held a range of other roles in the industry, along with acting as an advisor to the Department for Culture, Media & Sport.
In his time at the Association, Hawkswood has been instrumental in several major campaigns for safer gambling, including GAMSTOP, the recently created self-exclusion register for UK citizens. The GAMSTOP program is now up and running, and it is truly groundbreaking to have something on a national scale where total online self-exclusion is possible at the click of a mouse. It is something badly needed, and long overdue, in the UK. Participation will soon be legally required of all UK licensees, although that aspect is not yet fully implemented. For now, the database remains incomplete.
The RGA is based out of both London and Brussels and is widely considered to be the leading voice for the industry across Europe when negotiating with lawmakers and regulators. The RGA is known to be currently in talks with the UK Treasury concerning possible tax rate increases on remote gambling.
The RGA has not yet officially announced Hawkswood’s departure. The announcement is anticipated in the coming few days.
