The Charity Commission has opened a compliance case into GambleAware after campaigners lodged a complaint about it earlier this year.
In March, the Good Law Project (GLP) threatened legal action against the Commission if it refused to investigate the charity over concerns around its funding.
GLP argued that GambleAware is failing to provide unbiased information due to receiving funding from the gambling industry and urged the regulator to decipher whether it is breaking charity law.
Its campaign is being led by Annie Ashton, whose husband died to suicide, and gambling expert Will Prochaska.
A Commission spokesperson said: “We can confirm we have opened a regulatory compliance case relating to concerns raised about GambleAware.
“We are actively engaging with the charity’s trustees about the concerns raised.”
According to GambleAware's accounts for the year to March 2023, industry donations increased due to a “higher percentage contributed by the leading four operators in the industry”.
Its overall income increased by 38% due to a total increase in donations for the year.
‘Baseless and highly damaging’ allegations, says CEO
GambleAware chief executive Zoë Osmond denied the allegations made in GLP’s complaint, which she described as “both baseless and highly damaging”.
“We are robustly independent from the gambling industry, having long called for further regulation on gambling advertising and for the implementation of a statutory funding system to hold the gambling industry to account,” she said.
GambleAware did not respond directly to the regulator opening a compliance case into the charity.
In a statement responding to GLP’s complaint in March, the charity said: “The complaint lodged to the Charity Commission by the Good Law project is based on misleading and outdated information.
“While we are confident that this complaint will not be upheld, we are deeply concerned that inaccurate headlines and misleading newspaper articles may have a damaging impact on our services and the people that rely on them.”
