UK to merge National Lottery and Gambling Commissions

UK-Merge-Gambling-CommissionThose of you desperate to find another word that starts with ‘Q’ for the next time you’re playing Lexulous will be delighted to learn that the short form of ‘quasi-autonomous nongovernmental organization’ is ‘quango’. And a leaked document obtained by the Daily Telegraph claims that 177 quangos are due to be scrapped by Margaret Thatcher’s, er, David Cameron’s Conservatives in an effort to prune the fat off the public sector’s bottom line.

There are also 129 bodies that will be merged or consolidated down to a minimum of 57. As far as the gaming industry is concerned, the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission are scheduled to be merged into a single gambling regulator. This may actually be more difficult than it sounds, as one plank of the Gambling Commission’s stated mandate is “to keep crime out of gambling”, and in case they aren’t aware, the odds of winning the National Lottery are downright criminal.