Gibraltar Hunts for a New Gambling Commissioner as Andrew Lyman Heads for the Door

Key Points

• Gibraltar’s government has formally opened a search for a new gambling commissioner and executive director, with Andrew Lyman set to leave the role he has held since January 2018.
• The incoming commissioner must have at least five years of senior gambling industry experience, a recognised tax qualification, and proven engagement with UK government stakeholders.
• The appointment lands as Gibraltar operates under a new Gambling Act and manages growing uncertainty over its position on prediction markets, which most European regulators have moved to restrict.

One of iGaming’s longest-serving senior regulators is preparing to leave. Gibraltar’s Ministry of Justice, Trade and Industry has started a formal search for a new gambling commissioner and executive director, and the clock is already moving.

The Gibraltar Development Corporation posted the vacancy on behalf of the Ministry on 18 June 2026. Whoever gets the job will take on “strategic leadership and overall responsibility” for the Gambling Division at Europort. Lyman has held the post since January 2018, though he has not made any public statement alongside the listing. Both NEXT.io and SBC News reached out to him for comment.

Gibraltar Is Not Looking for Someone Safe

The job specification reads nothing like a routine hire. Applicants need at least five years of senior executive, regulatory or strategic experience inside the gambling sector. But past that threshold, the requirements get specific, and that specificity says a great deal about where Gibraltar actually stands right now.

Fiscal expertise is not optional. Qualification criteria include holding a recognised tax qualification or having a depth of experience with gaming taxes and fiscal policies. This is because the UK increased remote gaming taxes in April 2026, and 75% of Gibraltar’s gross gaming revenue comes from those that operate in the UK. When UK tax policy shifts, Gibraltar feels it immediately in its own accounts. Whoever takes this role needs to walk in already knowing how to handle that.

Candidates must also show they have actually engaged with UK government bodies, including direct advocacy before HM Treasury and other departments, not just familiarity with them. Knowledge of international gambling markets beyond the UK is required too. Gibraltar residency is compulsory on taking up the post. The contract runs for two years with the option to renew, and the salary is described as competitive, though no number has been published.

The Clock Is Running and the Finish Line Is Not Yet Visible

Application deadline: 12:00 CET, Tuesday, 14 July 2026. First interview round: September, first week. Interview round (short-listed candidates): Last two weeks of September. The application process is being conducted by the Gibraltar Development Corporation, under the supervision of the Minister for Gambling, Nigel Feetham. No date has been given for when the government expects to confirm a final appointment, and that gap is real. For operators trying to read where Gibraltar’s regulation is heading, a leadership vacuum stretching into late 2026 is not a small thing.

Eight Years, and a Jurisdiction That Looks Nothing Like the One He Joined

Lyman arrived in January 2018 carrying a background most regulators simply do not have. Before Gibraltar, he spent more than eight years at William Hill, with a period as director of group regulatory affairs. Before William Hill, he was director of monitoring and enforcement at the UK Gambling Commission. Sitting on both sides of that relationship, operator and watchdog, shaped how he read the industry and how he ran the division.

The most significant thing he delivered was getting Gibraltar off the Financial Action Task Force’s anti-money laundering grey list in February 2024. The process had been delayed twice over, first by Brexit, then by the pandemic. Being on that list was not simply a reputational issue. It caused real problems for licensed operators trying to work with banks and international counterparties. Lyman pushed through the structural reforms that finally closed it out.

He also said things publicly that most regulators would not. In March 2026, after bookmakers had a strong Cheltenham Festival, Lyman posted on LinkedIn pushing back against what he called a “wholesale public health approach to gambling.” His words were not subtle: “The very worst thing that could happen, for the industry and for ordinary people, is that the public health lobby prevails and regulated gambling becomes more and more restricted and less and less attractive.” He continued: “If governments and local authorities overregulate, it simply drives risky behaviour underground.”

The industry largely agreed with him. Frazer McNaughton, head of gaming compliance and group MLRO at Grace Gaming, responded publicly: “The abolitionist lobby is making it harder and harder for anyone to have a nice time gambling. It’s a real shame, as there’s so much more to gambling than a fractional public health risk.” Operators knew where Lyman stood because he told them. His successor may think the same things and say none of them.

Gibraltar Said Yes to Prediction Markets While Europe Kept Saying No

The sharpest edge of Lyman’s legacy is his stance on prediction markets, and it is also the one leaving the most uncertainty behind him. Regulators in the Netherlands, France and Germany blocked platforms like Polymarket outright. Lyman went the other way. He oversaw Gibraltar’s decision to licence ADI Predictstreet and to grant approval in principle to WageWire in June 2026, making Gibraltar one of the very few jurisdictions in Europe to formally regulate this product.

Speaking to SBC News earlier this month, he explained it without much hesitation: “As a small jurisdiction we are agile and whilst the mindset of some jurisdictions is ‘how can we stop this’, our mindset is ‘how can we regulate to jurisdictional advantage whilst guarding reputation.” He went further: “Prediction markets are meeting consumer and market demand. Prediction markets can be regulated proportionately from an integrity, AML and consumer protection point of view. You just need a can-do attitude.”

That position came with a cost. The PredictStreet licence attracted scrutiny and forced the Gambling Division to justify its authorisation process and internal standards in front of local stakeholders and international compliance bodies. SBC News put the succession question plainly: whether the incoming commissioner will stay as open to prediction market products “or will adopt a more strict approach in tune with current trends across Europe.” For operators and marketing teams who have built compliance and product strategies around how Gibraltar currently operates, that question is not something to file away. The answer will determine what kind of regulatory ground their licences sit on.

A New Law in Place, and Nobody Yet Appointed to Run It

This appointment is not arriving in calm waters. Gibraltar’s Parliament passed the first reading of the Gambling Bill 2025 in March 2026, replacing the 2005 Gambling Act with a framework built around how the industry actually works today. Minister Feetham was direct when presenting the Bill: “We are now working intensively and at pace to bridge, as far as possible, the gap created by the recent UK decision,” pointing squarely at the remote gaming duty rise. He confirmed the UK accounts for around 75% of gross revenues in Gibraltar’s gambling sector, and that narrowing that dependency is now an active policy, not future planning.

The new Act moves the basis of regulation away from where technology physically sits and towards where a gambling operation is actually run and controlled. Marketing services and player fund management are pulled into the licensing scope for the first time, through a new Gaming Operator Support Services licence. Enforcement has also been strengthened considerably. Feetham acknowledged that under the old law, regulators were left with “the nuclear option of licence suspension or revocation for breaches.” The new framework brings in proportionate sanctions, structured investigative procedures and a dedicated Gambling Appeals Tribunal. Feetham closed with the message Gibraltar wants operators to hear: “If you are prepared to be a good corporate citizen, paying your taxes, protecting consumers and guarding against the facilitation of financial crime then there is a welcome for you in the jurisdiction. We are open for business and will continue to be innovative.”

Expert Analysis

Gibraltar’s next gambling commissioner walks into a lot. A new legal framework is still being embedded. A prediction market’s position that most European peers have refused to take. Financial pressure from UK tax changes has already forced legislative acceleration. A 75% revenue dependence on a single market that is now more expensive to serve. None of that is a warm welcome. All of it is the job.

The specification, with its push for fiscal expertise alongside UK advocacy experience, is looking for someone who can hold both a regulator’s instinct and a commercial strategist’s eye at the same time. What it says nothing about is direction. Whether the incoming commissioner shares Lyman’s appetite for licensing products that the rest of Europe is blocking, that part is left entirely open.

For operators and marketing teams, the logic is not complicated. A commissioner who holds Lyman’s line means prediction market licences and the strategies built around them stay on firm ground. A commissioner who moves closer to how France, Germany and the Netherlands are thinking means those same strategies need to be looked at again. The September interviews will not be public. The appointment will be. Operators who only start paying attention at that point have already missed the moment to prepare.