A new Interim Chair has been appointed for the Industry Forum of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).

The regulator has named Kirsty Caldwell as its choice for a temporary hire while the recruitment drive is underway for a permanent replacement of Nick Rust, who ended his term in November 2025.

Caldwell is currently running Betsmart Consulting, which offers compliance and AML services to the gambling sector. This ties well with her 2024 endeavour as a member of the UKGC’s Industry Forum – a working group under the remit of the Commission, established in 2023 to deal with assessing the demands and current attitudes of UK gambling stakeholders.

Such analyses are of course of vital importance for the market’s growth and progression moving forward, especially now when looking at the potential consequences of the latest UK Budget, which saw online gambling taxes go up exponentially from 21% to 40%.

This has inadvertently paved the way for a completely different market, which remains to be seen how it would be shaped – with changes as drastic as a diminishing investor confidence or a severe hit on competition not to be ruled out yet.

All of the Forum’s work is evidence-based, and some of its areas of expertise include a Lived Experience Advisory Panel, an Advisory Board for Safer Gambling, a Digital Advisory Panel, consumer research initiatives, as well as building relationships with fellow international regulators.

On her appointment as the Interim Chair of the Forum, Caldwell added: “I am delighted to be taking on this role. I remain fully committed to building a healthy, respected gambling sector, and cooperation and communication between regulator and industry is key to achieving this. 

“We may not get it right every time, but the important thing is we learn from our mistakes, we keep talking and we keep moving forwards.”