Interim CEO Sarah Gardner on why the Gambling Commission keeps its leaders hooked

After nearly 17 years at the Gambling Commission, interim CEO Sarah Gardner still finds the job hard to walk away from — not because of loyalty to any particular role, but because the sector keeps serving up fresh puzzles. She recently told GGB that gambling regulation is "utterly seductive," a phrase someone once used to describe the field, and one she says resonates even if she would not go quite that far herself.

Gardner has occupied most of the senior positions around the Commission's table during her tenure. She stepped into the top job on an interim basis after Andrew Rhodes left as chief executive in February. This year has already brought other changes to the leadership team: director of policy Tim Miller announced in June that he would be leaving, and in September senior civil servant Sarah Fox, previously at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is set to take over part of his remit.

The regulator, Gardner says, has proved "quite difficult to leave" because of the constant evolution of the workload. She describes herself jokingly as a "Gambling Commission lifer," and says her focus now is on pushing the organisation toward more imaginative solutions rather than defaulting to heavy-handed measures. "The approach I'm trying to foster more and more at the Commission [is to be] more creative and not always reach for the blunt instrument," she explained.

Finding the right balance between consumer protection and consumer freedom is central to that mission. Gardner frames the sector as uniquely interesting from a regulatory perspective because it involves letting people enjoy their leisure time while ensuring support exists for those who need it.

Not every policy has gone down smoothly, however. The Commission's financial risk assessments — previously known as affordability checks — have become one of the most contentious files, drawing criticism from parts of the industry, the horse racing sector and politicians alike. A pilot ran in 2025, during which high-spending players at several tier one operators were flagged for additional credit checks by independent agencies. The Commission postponed an update on the measure earlier this year before confirming in July that it would be introduced formally through a phased roll-out.

Gardner defends the approach as a genuine attempt to strike that balance. She argues that financial risk assessments are meant to create a more sophisticated method of identifying the consumers who actually need assistance, rather than demanding extra documentation from a far larger group of customers. Asking a much broader sample for paperwork, she says, strikes her as too intrusive for what should remain a leisure activity.

She also acknowledges that regulation is a thankless pursuit. "I can't think of any announcement I've ever made where I haven't had one half of the debate saying: 'oh that doesn't go far enough'. And the other half saying: 'oh, it might go too far'," Gardner said, adding that such polarised reactions can actually signal that the regulator is broadly in the right place.