Ruth Evans has been appointed Chair of the Gambling Commission on a five-year term starting 30 September 2026, ending a wait of around 20 months for a permanent chair at the British regulator.
The post pays £85,000 a year for a time commitment of two days a week. Under the Gambling Act 2005, the appointment is made by the Secretary of State, and ministers were assisted by an Advisory Assessment Panel that included a senior departmental official and a Senior Independent Panel Member approved by the Commissioner for Public Appointments.
Evans takes over from Charles Counsell OBE, who was named Interim Chair in December 2024 and has held the role since February 2025.
Four decades in regulation
Evans arrives with a public appointments record built almost entirely outside gambling. She chaired the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body that 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, part of that time chairing its Standards and Ethics Committee, and served as a Non-Executive Director at the Serious Fraud Office.
That is a conduct and standards background rather than a commercial one, which matters for a regulator whose licence conditions increasingly turn on operator behaviour rather than product rules. Recent research found that 86% of UK gambling sites breach cookie rules, one measure of how wide the compliance gap runs across the licensed market.
Fraud and scams work
Her most recent work sits in financial crime. In 2018 Evans chaired the steering group that produced the voluntary industry code to reimburse victims of Authorised Push Payment (APP) bank transfer scams, the framework that preceded mandatory reimbursement rules in UK payments.
She currently chairs Stop Scams UK, which brings together banks, technology companies and telecoms firms on fraud prevention, and has recently been appointed Chair of the Criminal Legal Aid Advisory Board.
The relevance to gambling is direct. Payment fraud, money laundering and the crime-free limb of the Commission’s statutory objectives all run through the same territory, as does the regulator’s work against unlicensed operators. Europe’s illegal online gambling market is estimated at €12bn, and the Commission has made enforcement against unlicensed sites a stated priority.
What the department and the incoming chair said
DCMS Secretary of State Lisa Nandy said:
“I am pleased to announce Ruth Evans as the incoming chair of the Gambling Commission. She becomes Chair at this incredibly important time, supporting a sustainable, thriving industry with the essential protections needed to prevent harm.
I would also like to thank Charles Counsell OBE for his leadership of the Gambling Commission since February 2025. He has been a passionate and diligent Chair, and we owe him our gratitude.”
Evans said:
“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. 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.
I look forward to working with the Commission to encourage online safety for UK citizens that strengthen consumer protections while supporting a responsible, innovative and sustainable gambling sector. By combining proportionate regulation with partnership and shared responsibility, we can build greater public confidence and create lasting benefits for consumers and the wider economy.”
Counsell said:
“We are delighted to welcome Ruth as the new Chair of the Gambling Commission. Ruth’s regulatory and consumer experience will be invaluable to the Board as we continue our work to make gambling safer, fairer and crime-free. She joins the Gambling Commission at an important time for the gambling sector and the Commission. As we develop a new strategy, ramp up our world leading work to tackle illegal gambling and complete our part in the implementation of the Gambling Act Review, Ruth’s role will be pivotal in the years ahead.”
What Evans inherits
Counsell’s list is the workload. The Commission is writing a new corporate strategy, running enforcement against unlicensed operators, and finishing its share of the Gambling Act Review measures, including the statutory levy on operators and online stake limits.
The fiscal question sits outside the Commission but shapes the market it regulates. Operators are already modelling the effect of gambling duty changes trailed ahead of the autumn Budget, with reports of a 40% rate on slot machine gaming duty under consideration. Higher duty pushes margin pressure into the licensed sector at the same time the regulator is asking it to spend more on player protection and channelling.
Evans has no operator or supplier history to declare, which removes the conflict questions that have followed some previous appointments, and no gambling regulatory track record for the industry to read. Her first public test will be the strategy the Commission publishes after she takes her seat on 30 September, and whether it sets different enforcement priorities from the ones Counsell leaves behind.
Source: Gambling Commission
