Vulnerability and unfair profits: the wider implications of recent measures in British gambling law

Abstract This paper examines recent measures to address excess profits in online gambling. In a wider UK context of growing public distrust of gambling companies and concern about gambling harm, there has been a recent surge of interest in exploitative profits, focused on gambling as an extractive industry preying on vulnerable groups and individuals. New regulatory measures are being enacted to tackle such perceived exploitation, including requirements for enhanced financial surveillance to identify individuals spending more than they can afford, and lower stake limits for young adults (aged 18-24) on the basis of their higher risk of harm. I track these changes, and identify their wider implications for debates about excess profits. I suggest that we expand our analytic horizons beyond maximum prices for essential goods and services, to also consider the growing regulatory concern with non-essentials, including goods and services understood to pose risks to the vulnerable. In addition, we must attend to the both/and nature of vulnerability as a lens: it can help compel necessary state action to address injustice, and it can serve a variety of other agendas, including held by for-profit actors.