Latest news with #regulation
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Gambling company offered Melbourne man $25,000 on condition he withdraw complaint to regulator and be liable for ‘adverse media'
A Melbourne man says he was offered $25,000 by a gambling company on the condition that he withdraw a complaint to an industry regulator, agree to confidentiality provisions and indemnify them, including against adverse media coverage. Gordon Burns, 23, argues his 2022 betting frenzy with two bookmakers showed 'consistent patterns of addictive behaviour' and alleges that no one from either company checked on him to minimise gambling harm. Burns, who lodged a complaint with the Northern Territory Racing and Wagering Commission (NTRWC), which regulates most online gambling companies in Australia, also alleges no one checked the source of his funds. The commission requires bookmakers 'identify and respond to red flag behaviours' that indicate someone may be experiencing gambling harm. These red flags include someone increasing the amount and frequency of their deposits. Burns was 21 at the time of gambling with BetNation and BetDeluxe. Transaction data shows he made deposits of $10,000, $25,000 and $35,000 within eight minutes. Later the same day, he lodged three deposits worth $120,000 during a 17-minute period. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Shortly after lodging his complaint with the regulator in mid-March 2024, Burns received a WhatsApp message from a representative of the two bookmakers' parent company, Amused Group. 'Are you free for a brief call now?' the message said. 'I wanted to discuss a settlement for your account.' When Burns asked how the representative had found his phone number, he was told someone at the regulator had shared it with them. BetDeluxe and BetNation were acquired by Amused Group in March 2023, a few months after the gambling in question, and Amused have said they did not acquire Burns' account or 'any liabilities associated with the conduct of the business before that date'. After the acquisition, Burns said he received an offer from Amused Group to settle his claims for $25,000, honouring an offer made to him under the previous owner, on the condition that he withdraw his complaint by the end of the day and agree to make no further complaints to the NTRWC or any other regulator. He also said the gambling company had told him that if the complaint proceeded with the regulator, the agreement and the financial offer would be void. He said he was told he would need to provide the company with an indemnity from all claims in relation to the subject of the dispute, including any adverse media. An Amused Group spokesperson did not comment on the specific allegations made by Burns nor the offer made to him 'due to confidentiality and privacy considerations'. But they said the group 'takes all customer complaints seriously and handles each matter in accordance with applicable laws'. The Consumer Action Law Centre's chief executive, Stephanie Tonkin, said conditional settlement negotiations were common in many industries but expressed concern that they could be used to 'silence victims and avoid scrutiny'. 'In my view, [they] should be used in limited circumstances and should not prevent a complaint to a regulator,' Tonkin said. Lauren Levin, who has spent decades researching the harms of the gambling industry, said 'in the majority of cases, the offer of quick cash proves overwhelming for people in difficult financial circumstances'. The Amused Group spokesperson said 'confidentiality provisions are standard in many industries to provide finality and protect the privacy of all parties to a dispute'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'They are not intended to silence individuals or avoid regulatory oversight,' the spokesperson said. 'In fact, such provisions often facilitate the resolution of complex and sensitive matters without the need for prolonged adversarial processes. 'Amused Group remains committed to transparency, accountability, and the fair treatment of all our customers.' The company also said it was 'committed to responsible gambling and customer wellbeing' and had 'a dedicated team, systems, and policies in place to help identify and respond to potential indicators of gambling harm'. 'We have invested heavily in responsible gambling measures, and believe our commitment in this area would compare favourably to any other operator in the market,' the Amused spokesperson said. Burns argues BetNation and BetDeluxe should have done more to protect him and that he did not withdraw his complaint because he wanted the regulator to investigate why, in his view, 'so many red flags were ignored'. 'The $25,000 might help me, but it is not going to help the next person that has suffered,' Burns said. Burns did not accept the settlement offer and says his complaint is still before the NTRWC. In a statement, a spokesperson for the regulator said it understood settlements were commonly offered by gambling companies. But they said this did not automatically prevent it from investigating serious allegations. 'When the commission receives advice that a complaint is withdrawn due to the parties reaching a confidential settlement concerning the complaint, the commission undertakes an assessment to determine whether the subject matter of the complaint is sufficiently serious to warrant investigation and disciplinary action,' the spokesperson said. 'There are a number of examples where the commission has disciplined a licensee after a complaint has been withdrawn.'
WIRED
14 hours ago
- Business
- WIRED
How the Loudest Voices in AI Went From ‘Regulate Us' to ‘Unleash Us'
May 30, 2025 10:00 AM Two years after Sam Altman pitched Congress on AI guardrails, he's back in Washington with a new message: To beat China, invest in OpenAI. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Photograph: May 16, 2023, Sam Altman appeared before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary. The title of the hearing was 'Oversight of AI.' The session was a lovefest, with both Altman and the senators celebrating what Altman called AI's 'printing press moment'—and acknowledging that the US needed strong laws to avoid its pitfalls. 'We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,' he said. The legislators hung on Altman's every word as he gushed about how smart laws could allow AI to flourish—but only within firm guidelines that both lawmakers and AI builders deemed vital at that moment. Altman was speaking for the industry, which widely shared his attitude. The battle cry was 'Regulate Us!' This is an essay from the latest edition of Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter. SIGN UP for Plaintext to read the whole thing, and tap Steven's unique insights and unmatched contacts for the long view on tech. Two years later, on May 8 of this year, Altman was back in front of another group of senators. The senators and Altman were still singing the same tune, but one pulled from a different playlist. This hearing was called 'Winning the AI Race.' In DC, the word 'oversight' has fallen out of favor, and the AI discourse is no exception. Instead of advocating for outside bodies to examine AI models to assess risks, or for platforms to alert people when they are interacting with AI, committee chair Ted Cruz argued for a path where the government would not only fuel innovation but remove barriers like 'overregulation.' Altman was on board with that. His message was no longer 'regulate me' but 'invest in me.' He said that overregulation—like the rules adopted by the European Union or one bill recently vetoed in California would be 'disastrous.' 'We need the space to innovate and to move quickly,' he said. Safety guardrails might be necessary, he affirmed, but they needed to involve 'sensible regulation that does not slow us down.' What happened? For one thing, the panicky moment just after everyone got freaked out by ChatGPT passed, and it became clear that Congress wasn't going to move quickly on AI. But the biggest development is that Donald Trump took back the White House, and hit the brakes on the Biden administration's nuanced, pro-regulation tone. The Trump doctrine of AI regulation seems suspiciously close to that of Trump supporter Marc Andreessen, who declared in his Techno Optimist Manifesto that AI regulation was literally a form of murder because 'any deceleration of AI will cost lives.' Vice President J.D. Vance made these priorities explicit in an international gathering held in Paris this February. 'I'm not here … to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago,' he said. 'We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies.' The administration later unveiled an AI Action Plan 'to enhance America's position as an AI powerhouse and prevent unnecessarily burdensome requirements from hindering private sector innovation.' Two foes have emerged in this movement. First is the European Union which has adopted a regulatory regimen that demands transparency and accountability from major AI companies. The White House despises this approach, as do those building AI businesses in the US. But the biggest bogeyman is China. The prospect of the People's Republic besting the US in the 'AI Race' is so unthinkable that regulation must be put aside, or done with what both Altman and Cruz described as a "light touch.' Some of this reasoning comes from a theory known as 'hard takeoff,' which posits that AI models can reach a tipping point where lightning-fast self-improvement launches a dizzying gyre of supercapability, also known as AGI. 'If you get there first, you dastardly person, I will not be able to catch you,' says former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, with the "you" being a competitor (Schmidt had been speaking about China's status as a leader in open source.) Schmidt is one of the loudest voices warning about this possible future. But the White House is probably less interested in the Singularity than it is in classic economic competition. The fear of China pulling ahead on AI is the key driver of current US policy, safety be damned. The party line even objects to individual states trying to fill the vacuum of inaction with laws of their own. The version of the tax-break giving, Medicaid-cutting megabill just passed by the House included a mandated moratorium on any state-level AI legislation for 10 years . That's like eternity in terms of AI progress. (Pundits are saying that this provision won't survive some opposition in the Senate, but it should be noted that almost every Republican in the House voted for it.) It's not surprising that Trumpworld would reject regulation and embrace a jingoistic stance on AI. But what happened to the seemingly genuine appetite in the industry for rules to ensure AI products don't run amok? I contacted several of the top AI companies this week and was pointed to published blogs and transcripts from speeches and public testimony, but no executive would go on record on the topic. (To be fair, I didn't give them much time.) Typical of those materials was OpenAI's policy blog. It asks for 'freedom to innovate,' meaning, in all likelihood, no burdensome laws; strong export controls; and an opportunistic request for 'freedom to learn.' This is a euphemistic request for Congress to redefine intellectual property as 'fair use' so OpenAI and other companies can train their models with copyrighted materials—without compensating the creators. Microsoft is also asking for this bonanza. (Disclosure: I am on the council of the Authors Guild, which is suing OpenAI and Microsoft over the use of copyrighted books as training materials. Opinions expressed here are my own.) The 'light-touch' (or no-touch) regulatory camp does have an excellent point to make: No one is sure how to craft laws that prevent the worst dangers of AI without slowing the pace of innovation. But aside from avoiding catastrophic risk, there are plenty of other areas where AI regulation would not introduce speed bumps to research. These involve banning certain kinds of AI surveillance, deepfakes, and discrimination; clearly informing people when they are interacting with robots; and mandating higher standards to protect personal data in AI systems. (I admit I cheated in making that list—not by using ChatGPT, but by drawing on the kinds of AI harms that the House of Representatives would not allow states to regulate.) Public pressure, or some spectacular example of misuse, may lead Congress to address those AI issues at some point. But what lingers for me is the about-face from two years ago when serious worries about catastrophic risk dominated conversations in the AI world. The glaring exception to this is Anthropic, which still hasn't budged from a late October blog post—just days before the presidential election—that not only urged effective regulation to 'reduce catastrophic risks' but pretty much proposed the end of times if we didn't do it soon. 'Governments should urgently take action on AI policy in the next eighteen months,' it read, in boldface. 'The window for proactive risk prevention is closing fast.' In this environment, there is virtually no chance that Anthropic will get its wish. Maybe it won't matter: It could be that fears of an AI apocalypse are way overblown. Take note, though, that the leaders of just about every single major AI company are predicting that in a few years, we will realize artificial general intelligence. When you press them, they will also admit that controlling AI, or even understanding how it works, is a work in progress. Nonetheless, the focus is now on hastening the push to more powerful AI—ostensibly to beat China. Chinese people have made it clear they don't want to report to robot overlords any more than we do. America's top geopolitical rival has also demonstrated some interest in imposing strong safety standards. But if the United States insists on eschewing guardrails and going full-speed toward a future that it can't contain, our biggest competitor will have no choice but to do the same. May the best hard takeoff win.
Arab News
14 hours ago
- Business
- Arab News
Pakistan plans virtual assets regulator as crypto council convenes next week
KARACHI: Pakistan plans to establish a regulatory body to oversee digital assets, with the proposal set to be discussed at a meeting of the Pakistan Crypto Council next week, the finance minister said on Friday. The move marks a significant shift for the South Asian nation, which had previously banned cryptocurrency transactions in 2018, citing financial risks and lack of regulation. The Pakistan Crypto Council, set up in March, was formed to guide policy on blockchain, digital currencies and attract crypto-related investment as the government reconsiders its approach to digital finance. 'The Pakistan Crypto Council will convene a high-level meeting on Monday, 2nd June 2025, to be chaired by Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue,' the ministry said in an official statement. 'Key items on the agenda include the development of a robust regulatory framework to govern digital and virtual assets in Pakistan, in alignment with global standards and technological advancements,' it continued. 'A focal point of discussion will be the groundwork for the establishment of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) — a proposed autonomous body to oversee the digital finance and crypto ecosystem in the country.' Earlier this month, Pakistan announced the allocation of 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the first phase of a national initiative to power bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. Additionally, Bilal Bin Saqib, CEO of the Pakistan Crypto Council, unveiled the country's first government-led strategic bitcoin reserve at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas. The upcoming council meeting aims to lay down the foundation for a secure, transparent and innovation-friendly regulatory environment. The finance ministry said the upcoming meeting would reflect the government's commitment to shaping a future-ready financial infrastructure while ensuring stability and compliance in the emerging digital economy.
Bloomberg
16 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
What If Independent Regulators Are No Longer Independent?
For decades, the US regulators who work to keep inflation down and economic growth up, ensure markets are competitive and transparent, safeguard elections, and protect workers, consumers and investors have operated largely free of political influence. The Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Election Commission, and more than a dozen other regulatory agencies have a remit to make and enforce rules under leaders who are protected from being removed by the president. Their independence is meant to guarantee that their decisions serve only one master: the public. President Donald Trump wants to upend that arrangement. The president and his allies are trying to exert control over these independent federal agencies, which they view as an extraconstitutional 'fourth branch' of government. Trump has issued an order that aims to consolidate regulatory oversight in the White House and has fired several commissioners of independent agencies — moves with no precedent in modern history.
Finextra
17 hours ago
- Business
- Finextra
Arkansas Congressman French Hill reveals digital asset Clarity Act
House Committee on Financial Services Chairman French Hill (R-AR) today introduced the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, which would establish a regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. House Committee on Agriculture Chairman G.T. Thompson (R-PA), House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), House Committee on Financial Services Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), House Committee on Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Chairman Dusty Johnson (R-SD), Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig (D-MN), Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), and Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) are all original co-sponsors. Chairman Hill said, 'I am proud to introduce the bipartisan CLARITY Act with my colleagues. Our bill brings long-overdue clarity to the digital asset ecosystem, prioritizes consumer protection and American innovation, and builds off our work in the 118th Congress. I look forward to delivering our bill to President Trump's desk and securing America's position as the global leader in digital assets.' Chairman Thompson added, "I'm proud to join Chairman Hill, and bipartisan leaders from both our committees in introducing Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. Today's introduction of CLARITY is an exciting step towards delivering the certainty and clarity digital asset entrepreneurs and markets need. This landmark legislation will protect consumers, unleash entrepreneurship, and ensure the United States sets the global standard for the future of innovation." House Majority Whip Emmer stated, 'This is an important moment for the United States. This bill is a bold step to ensuring that the next iteration of the internet is developed by Americans and driven by our values. I am grateful to my colleagues for all of their work to craft this thoughtful, globally competitive framework, and look forward to working with them to ensure this commonsense legislation is signed into law.' Subcommittee Chairman Steil said, 'The golden age of digital assets is here. America won't just participate in the Web3 revolution; we will win it. The CLARITY Act ensures that financial innovation and development of digital assets occurs here in the United States. Our bill secures American dominance, democratizes digital assets, unleashes innovation, and protects consumers from fraud. Thank you, Chairman Hill and Chairman Thompson, for leading this effort.' Subcommittee Chairman Johnson added, 'America should be the global leader in the digital assets marketplace - but we can't do that without establishing a clear regulatory framework. This legislation gives our markets the clarity they need to thrive, protect consumers, and foster innovation. I'm grateful for the partnership of Chairmen Thompson, Hill, Steil, and Majority Whip Emmer thus far and I'm looking forward to working together to get this landmark legislation across the finish line.' Rep. Davidson said, 'The CLARITY Act creates a clear and effective regulatory framework for digital assets. It protects the right to self-custody and the freedom to transact. These principles are essential for innovation, economic growth, and individual liberty. Since 2018, I've worked to bring legal clarity to digital assets. The CLARITY Act delivers on that goal. I applaud Chairman Hill for his leadership in solidifying the United States' position as a global leader in digital assets." Ranking Member Craig said, 'Digital assets, including crypto currencies, are moving from a unique, novel financial product to becoming more and more integrated with our current financial architecture. I believe it is critical that Congress establish clear protections for consumers and retail investors as well as rules of the road for businesses dealing in digital assets. The bipartisan CLARITY Act will ensure oversight and regulation of digital assets in our financial system so that business owners, innovators and consumers can engage with in these markets knowing what is expected of them.' Rep. Torres said, 'For too long, regulatory uncertainty has held back the full potential of digital innovation in the United States. The CLARITY Act will deliver clear rules of the road that entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers deserve. By protecting consumers, promoting transparency, and closing regulatory gaps, this legislation will ensure that America remains the global leader in digital asset innovation.' Rep. Davis said, 'Families, entrepreneurs, and small businesses across our country, including rural areas in eastern North Carolina, seek ways to engage in the modern economy. Digital assets present a chance for a more inclusive financial future, but we need clear rules and fair oversight for innovation to thrive. Congress must ensure that America shapes digital finance, creates opportunities, protects consumers, and supports overlooked communities.' Further Background on the Committee's work on digital asset market structure legislation: On May 22, 2024, the Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century (FIT21) Act passed the House of Representatives 279-136 with 71 Democrats supporting the bill in the 118th Congress. On April 4, 2025, Chairman Hill and Chairman Thompson published an op-ed in CoinDesk outlining their vision for digital asset market structure legislation for the 119th Congress. On April 9, 2025, the Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence held its first digital asset market structure hearing of this Congress. On May 5, 2025, Chairman Hill, Chairman Thompson, Subcommittee Chairman Steil, and Subcommittee Chairman Johnson released a digital asset market structure discussion draft to establish a regulatory framework for digital assets in the United States. On May 6, 2025, the House Financial Services and Agriculture Committees held a public joint roundtable discussion on key concepts and principles for digital asset market structure legislation.
