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What is Spear Of Athena?
Various MPs voiced concerns about the risk of privacy violations in accessing this data, and the potential social stigma around the information being shared.
Christofidou also floated the idea of issuing GMI recipients with a special card for in-person verification at gambling venues, but several MPs warned this could stigmatise welfare recipients.
Current gambling legislation restricts participation for minors and those classified as “financially vulnerable”. However, GMI recipients are not yet formally classified as such for the purpose of these regulations.
How to play Spear Of Athena
In an interview with the Financial Times over the weekend, Done cautioned that additional tax hikes could result in widespread betting shop closures, harm related sectors such as horse racing and accelerate the decline of the high street.
Betfred currently operates approximately 1,094 retail shops across the UK. Done highlighted the concrete risks of Machine Gaming Duty – taxes on gambling machines – doubling from 20% to 40%, a move reportedly under consideration by Chancellor John Healey ahead of the Autumn Budget.
Betfred’s retail business still heavily depends on fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) and in-shop gambling. Despite the maximum stake limit being cut to £2 in 2019, FOBTs account for roughly half of Betfred’s shop profits. Done emphasised that without these machines, retail betting wass “impossible”.
What is Spear Of Athena?
“I’m trying to address every stage: prevention, support for people who are already struggling, and then action against the illegal sites.”
He does not believe illegal gambling can simply be eliminated. But he believes it can be made harder to operate. That may be the more realistic role for companies such as Trace2Trace as the illegal market evolves: not replacing regulators or enforcement agencies, but providing the intelligence needed to see beyond the individual URL. For Madsen, the motivation remains deeply personal: “I know very well what gambling addiction can do to people.”
The emergence of his company along with a string of others reflects a growing need in the industry: as illegal operators become more adept at moving, cloning and disguising their online presence, enforcement may increasingly depend on understanding the deep workings of the networks behind the screen.
