EVEN when Leicester City were on the verge of their historic Premier League title ten years ago, Advocate Cyril Whelan was not tempted to pop down to the bookies and put a fiver on their deciding match.
It was nothing to do with a lifetime’s experience of the Foxes. The former chairman of the Jersey Gambling Commission simply has no interest in gambling himself.
But what Advocate Whelan is acutely interested in, as you might expect, is the regulation of the industry. And the balancing of the enjoyment it gives many people and its economic potential for the Island, with the social harms he has witnessed from different vantage points during his career.
In addition to 11 years with the commission, Advocate Whelan was formerly a senior legal adviser in the Law Officers’ Department and a relief coroner, so that his voice has particular authority.
“When you speak of gambling addiction, you’re not speaking metaphorically. It is as wicked an addiction, as powerful, as alcoholism or drug addiction. I’ve seen it close up – people you wouldn’t think of as being gambling addicts; people with respectable white collar jobs; nice likeable people.
“And it is the usual story of the ripples in the pool. It’s not just the person themselves who has got to live and cope with the addiction but the effect it has on the partner; on the children and the family; the effect on colleagues; all the typical features of addiction where people become dishonest, unreliable, borrow money, and don’t return it. All those things,” he said.
Advocate Whelan has held inquests into suicides where addiction to gambling has been a significant factor, while he told another story of a professional with a responsible job – which he later lost – who borrowed money from his mother. Having managed to gather together sufficient to repay her, he stopped off on the way home and blew it in the bookies. To explain himself, he rubbed his face against a wall to draw blood and told her he had been mugged on the way there.
It would be a mistake to suppose such things are common in Jersey; yet they are sadly not so uncommon as to make them exceptional. According to the commission’s 2025 annual report, 232 self-exclusion agreements were in place to help individuals try to stop gambling. These are voluntary statements of intent which a licensed operator is obliged to honour.
Since, to be effective, individuals must exclude themselves from more than one operator, the number of people represented is smaller but they are, of course, simply the ones who have self-identified as having a problem. The real number will be much larger than the 127 individuals revealed in the report.
Responsibility for their welfare has become a topic of debate. Advocate Whelan recently wrote an opinion piece for the JEP, prompted by a reader’s letter which pointed the finger at the commission as regulator. In response, he wanted to clarify its role as the body responsible for setting and enforcing appropriate standards, and to point out that clear government policy should precede steps to regulate.
The Gambling Commission’s former chairman is not by nature a finger-pointer. He prefers to take a step back to recall that gambling regulation was once undertaken by the States but then devolved to the arms-length commission. But he stressed that regulation represents only a part of what should be a triumvirate also embracing health measures and policy-making. He believes there is a lack of clear political responsibility in these areas.
A number of politicians have been helpful to the commission, Advocate Whelan acknowledged, pointing particularly to Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham when he was Economic Development Minister, and to his successor in that ministry, Deputy Kirsten Morel.
However, he continued: “But what has been missing is a central forum where advice and philosophising can turn into action. There is no single agency responsible for the Jersey model. We are responsible to one minister who is the Minister for Economic Development. And yet, the solution – and it’s recognised worldwide now that gambling addiction is a public health issue – lies in the hands of Public Health. Trying to get traction there has been difficult.
“I’m not sure it’s been particularly helpful to have Economic Development as the ministry. That function would probably be better off under Health. If we had a better mechanism to try to produce results, I think that would be the next sensible step.
“I’ve said that it’s taken me a long time to realise the simple truth that a regulator should regulate; Public Health should provide treatment; and politicians should provide a policy. Where do those tripartite responsibilities come together to be discussed and produce action? I think the answer is probably a change of political responsibility.”
It was the lack of such clarity that led the commission to “strike out on its own”, engaging with agencies in the UK with expertise in the field and seeking itself to secure the “Holy Grail” of a funded health practitioner in Jersey. The commission has a social responsibility fund into which its licensees are required to pay to help prevent addiction and other forms of harm associated with gambling.
It had been close to securing that post only to be frustrated when – the day before the contract was due to be signed – the chosen provider pulled out because it decided it did not wish to enter contracts for work beyond the English mainland.
But lack of clarity over the gambling industry manifests itself in ways unconnected with health impacts in the Island in the view of the commission’s former chairman. He is troubled by the sense that Jersey may be missing out on economic benefits enjoyed by other jurisdictions like the Isle of Man, Gibraltar and Alderney.
“They profited hugely from properly regulated gambling regulation in exactly the same way that Jersey has profited hugely by very well regulated financial activity. And Jersey has a huge advantage in terms of VAT, for example, an infrastructure already in place, and a lot of competence here,” he said.
It is a line of thinking prompted by something he said he found “baffling” when he first joined the commission. In those days it was regulating Mohawk Online, the commission having signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake, on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada.
He explained that the homelands were immune from Canadian regulation and wanted the ability to provide their own forms of gambling independent of the Canadian authorities.
“They wanted to be seen internationally to be clean and well regulated and completely pucker. They chose Jersey,” he said.
Ultimately, a change in company ownership brought the relationship to a close. Jersey no longer acts as the regulator but it suggests a potential that is not being explored, he believes.
Advocate Whelan continued: “We’ve never marketed it and the reason, I think, is that there is a fear that [our] uniquely important financial [services] economy could be tarnished or prejudiced by association with gambling. There has been lots of talk about broadening the economy but I think there’s been no particular appetite for what could be a hugely significant inflow. These things are really productive in terms of income.”
What was required, Advocate Whelan suggested, was a clear policy statement on where the Island stood in terms of this potential global market. To issue such a statement would be helpful if only to clarify the issues, he thought.
“Should you really be talking about diversifying the economy when you’re ignoring or rejecting an opportunity for big bucks. I mean there’s significant funds [which] would register on the economic scale here. There’s all sorts of debate to be had but the debate should be held. The difficulty [the commission] has is that we’re a regulator, not a promoter. We can’t go out drawing-in business,” he said.
But does a discussion about monetising the potential of gambling elsewhere not refocus attention on the situation locally? That troubling question lingers: how successful has Jersey been in ensuring that the value of gambling in financial terms is not outweighed by any social problems created? Where does that leave the regulator?
“I suppose the answer is that we countenance gambling because we fund, in a necessarily limited way, people going to England for treatment; we do ourselves put in place measures to assist in that area of problem gambling; and we do, in individual cases, try to rattle the cage locally, and get people psychological or psychiatric help.
“I’m proud of these things actually. We used a big whack of money to bring over specialist speakers for a two-day conference. These were people who were hands-on, who knew what they were talking about. They were clinicians specialised in treating people. And it was received like water in the desert: there was a hugely enthusiastic response,” he said.
Another of the commission’s interventions involved bringing to Jersey the former Arsenal and England footballer Paul Merson, who has had a well-publicised battle with gambling addiction. He described how desperation led him once to contemplate breaking the fingers of his right hand in a door jam to prevent himself from using his mobile phone to gamble.
What he said he needed then was on the spot help and it is just what Advocate Whelan believes Jersey needs now.
But the irony is that it hardly seems the responsibility of a regulator – whose task is to oversee and enforce appropriate standards in the industry – to provide it.
“It’s easily solved – one person on the end of a telephone who knows what they’re doing and what they’re talking about who is available all the time – physically available.
“I keep coming back to it. There’s been a blurring of functions. There is no doubt about it. It’s taken me a long time to appreciate it, but it’s very simple: regulators regulate; Health offer treatment; and politicians define policy. It’s absolutely that simple,” he said.
