New UKGC website – room for improvement but it’s still a work in progress

As some may have noticed, the Gambling Commission has published a notice on its website (and a link to the News page on its new website) stating:

We’re gradually moving to a new website. All news published after 22 March 2021 will only be available on our new website. You can still view all previous news articles and press releases on this website.

This does mean that currently it can be difficult to locate relevant up-to-date UKGC material. It appears that until such time as the new website completely replaces the old site, it may be necessary to search on both sites to find what one is looking for. The ‘search’ facility on the old website was notoriously poor. It remains to be seen whether that same facility on the new site will show improvements in this respect.

As matters stand, it appears that the principal focus has been on improving the ‘Public and Players’ section of the website, with considerably more work required to be undertaken on the ‘Licensees and Businesses’ section, as is acknowledged by the Commission stating:

We’re working on this part of the site. If you can’t find what you’re looking for here, you can visit the licensees and businesses section on our existing website.

However, despite the further work required to both expand and improve those sections of the new website that are aimed at the industry, some improvements are already evident and, in particular, we recommend clients to make use of:

We hope that, as the new website is expanded further, benefit will also be derived from other features such as the updating that has occurred in relation to the old site’s ‘Gambling software and online businesses: sector specific compliance’ webpage and the new site’s more interactive webpages on that same subject-matter.