LiSense: Closing the Compliance Gap

Andy, you’ve spent more than 20 years in the gambling industry. What prompted you to establish LiSense, and why do you think this particular gap in compliance technology had remained unaddressed?

The founding team behind LiSense consists of three gambling lawyers and myself, representing the operational side of the industry. Having worked in gaming for 20 years, I’ve been involved predominantly in operations, but compliance has always been a significant part of that.

What we recognised was that, in many companies, due diligence is still treated as a one-off exercise. You onboard a partner as a UKGC-licensed business, complete the necessary checks and, in some cases, that’s effectively where the process ends. Alternatively, businesses have manual processes involving regular checks of the Gambling Commission’s website to ensure licences remain active. That’s particularly challenging for operators working with large numbers of partners, especially those aggregating content from multiple studios.

LiSense fills that gap by providing automated alerts whenever a licence status changes. We’re trying to make life easier for compliance teams, provide a more structured approach to ongoing due diligence and, most importantly, ensure operators and suppliers are made aware immediately when something changes.

As to why it hasn’t been addressed before, I think most companies have developed their own manual solutions. It perhaps hasn’t been the highest priority for internal technology development. We’ve worked with a specialist technology partner and spent considerable time developing a robust platform that can provide this functionality for a modest subscription fee, without businesses having to invest significant resources in building something themselves.

Is the principal attraction for operators the time saved by their compliance departments, or is the greater benefit reducing regulatory exposure?

The absolute headline is reducing risk. Improving governance is another significant benefit, and saving time is an additional advantage. Operators have licensing obligations to ensure they’re working with appropriately licensed partners. Imagine a supplier surrendering its licence while continuing to have content distributed through an operator. The operator might have a process involving emails going backwards and forwards, relying on the right people receiving and acting on that information.

In my experience, that’s often where the chain breaks down. If you’re an operator distributing content from a supplier that is no longer appropriately licensed, there could be regulatory consequences. LiSense addresses that risk by providing the information as soon as a change is detected. It also improves governance because different people within a business can have different access levels, ensuring relevant information reaches those responsible for acting on it.

And, of course, there’s the practical benefit of not having compliance teams checking the UKGC register every day. We’ve also made that information much easier to search and interpret. The Commission’s public registers aren’t necessarily the easiest to navigate, and the feedback we’ve received suggests our presentation of that data makes it considerably more accessible.

You launched with Bally’s, BoyleSports and Light & Wonder as commercial partners. What attracted those businesses to LiSense, and how closely have they been involved in shaping the platform?

It’s important to make the distinction that these weren’t companies approaching us because they had experienced a particular compliance problem. What they recognised was that ongoing licence monitoring is something they need to get right. The compliance teams and senior management we’ve spoken to understand the value of having a more structured and automated approach. The response from other operators and suppliers since launch has been very similar. They recognise that it makes sense, saves time and addresses a gap in their existing processes.

One of our strategic priorities has always been to work closely with our partners. We’re speaking to them regularly, and there are already features they’ve requested that we’ve subsequently added to the platform. We want to build what our customers actually need rather than what we think they need. That approach is fundamental to how we’re developing LiSense, and it’s something we intend to maintain as the business grows.

For an operator signing up to LiSense, what does the onboarding process involve? How quickly can they begin monitoring their commercial partners?

It’s very straightforward because there are no integration requirements. Customers don’t need to connect LiSense to their existing gaming platform or internal systems. What we need is a list of the partners they want to monitor. We can configure that for them by uploading those businesses into their monitoring dashboard, which is a very quick process.

Alternatively, some customers prefer not to share that information with us. In those cases, they can upload their own data through a CSV file or simply search the register and add the relevant licences themselves. Once those partners are in the dashboard, the monitoring begins. They’ll receive alerts if a licence status changes, if a new licence is added, if a licence type is amended or if any other relevant change occurs. The only ongoing requirement is that customers incorporate LiSense into their own processes. When they take on a new licensed supplier or operator partner, they need to add that business to their monitoring list. It’s designed to be a standalone platform that’s simple to deploy and requires very little ongoing administration.

LiSense monitors more than 300,000 data points on the Gambling Commission’s public registers daily. How frequently is that information updated, and how quickly are customers notified of changes?

Whenever information changes on the UKGC website, it’s pulled into our platform and updated. The important distinction is that the Gambling Commission isn’t updating its registers every ten seconds, so it’s not a continuous stream of new information. However, when the regulator updates its data, that information is generally reflected in LiSense within half an hour.

In terms of how frequently licences change, it’s not something that’s necessarily happening several times a day for an individual operator. But when it does happen, it can be a major incident requiring immediate attention. We’ve seen considerable regulatory enforcement activity, including suspensions, and businesses need to be aware of those developments quickly.

The monitoring also extends beyond company licences to personal management licence holders. For a large operator with substantial numbers of PML holders, keeping track of individual licence statuses and maintenance dates can be an ongoing challenge. That applies to both online and land-based businesses. A land-based operator might have significant numbers of personal licence holders across multiple premises, all requiring oversight. The objective is that when something important changes, our partners are informed promptly and can respond accordingly.

Beyond identifying licence changes, what additional functionality does LiSense provide, and which capabilities are proving particularly valuable to customers?

One of the most important is the audit history. We track the history of licence changes and the actions taken in response. If an operator is sitting with the Gambling Commission during an assessment and needs to demonstrate how it has managed its compliance obligations, our platform can show exactly when something changed, when action was taken and the status attached to that action. That provides a clear, time-stamped record of the process rather than relying on somebody reconstructing events through emails or internal documents.

Another important feature is deadline monitoring. We track licence maintenance dates and relevant payments, including annual fees and regulatory levies. The platform starts issuing reminders 30 days before a deadline, with the frequency increasing until the payment has been made and signed off. We’ve also put considerable thought into the information contained within the alerts themselves. Rather than simply telling someone that a licence has changed, the notification provides useful context. It explains what the change means, what the operator or supplier should consider doing, the level of urgency and the potential next steps.

We’ve tried to make the platform as informative and user-friendly as possible so compliance teams understand the significance of an event rather than having to investigate everything from scratch.

For a product dealing with regulatory obligations, reliability is critical. How have you approached the technology infrastructure, and what level of confidence can customers have in the system?

Trust is absolutely fundamental to what we’re providing. The platform has been built using top-tier AWS infrastructure, and we’ve been very conscious that this isn’t an area where we should be cutting costs. We’ve also worked closely with our development partner to ensure the technology is as robust as possible. We have our own monitoring processes in place to maintain system availability as close to 100 per cent as we can, alongside ongoing development to improve the platform.

The system was tested extensively before we officially launched in September. We initially launched the technology in April, spent several months testing it and then onboarded selected partners before announcing our first major commercial agreements. We understand that customers are relying on the information we provide to support important compliance decisions. That means reliability, accuracy and the ability to demonstrate what’s happened within the platform have to remain central to everything we do.

Given the LiSense.ai branding, where does artificial intelligence fit into the product? How much can technology automate, and where does human compliance expertise remain essential?

AI is only as useful as the person using it. I very much believe there will always be a need for significant human oversight in this area. There are elements of compliance that require judgement rather than automated decision-making. From our perspective, what we’re providing through the platform is information. We’re identifying what’s changed, explaining the significance of that change and providing guidance on what a business should consider doing about it. But ultimately, somebody within that business needs to make a sensible decision about how to respond.

Perhaps in a few years’ time, as process automation continues to evolve, more of those activities will become automated. However, our role at the moment is to ensure that the people responsible for compliance have the information they need in a timely manner. We’re not trying to remove the need for compliance professionals. We’re trying to give them better tools so they can concentrate on the decisions that require their expertise.

Your customer base extends beyond licensed operators and suppliers to affiliates, payment providers, football clubs and media organisations. How are you approaching those different sectors?

We’ve divided our offering into three broad categories. The first is smaller operators and suppliers, both online and land-based, where we offer a standard package based on the number of users who need access to the platform. The second is a premium package aimed at larger operators, aggregators and businesses dealing with significant volumes of upstream and downstream partners and content. The third is what we call media services, which covers affiliates, payment service providers, football clubs and media owners.

The third category is particularly interesting because many of those organisations have commercial relationships with gambling operators. A football club might have one or several betting partners, while media businesses and affiliates could be promoting numerous gambling brands. They have responsibilities to ensure those partners are appropriately licensed while they’re being promoted.

We’re already having some interesting conversations with football clubs and affiliates, and there are further announcements expected in the coming weeks. We believe the platform provides a strong solution for licensed businesses managing substantial numbers of commercial relationships, but a more focused version is equally useful for organisations outside the core gambling supply chain. The technology allows us to develop those opportunities simultaneously rather than having to complete one sector before moving into another.

International expansion is clearly part of the roadmap. Which markets are you considering for 2027, and how difficult will it be to replicate LiSense across different regulatory systems?

At the moment, LiSense is available in Great Britain, but we’re developing our roadmap for 2027 and determining the order in which we’ll enter new markets. The platform has been built to be highly scalable. Every regulator presents its information differently, but fundamentally the technology, monitoring tools and alerts module are transferable. Entering new markets is a high priority, both to grow the business and to provide more comprehensive coverage for our existing customers.

We’re not necessarily going to pursue the low-hanging fruit. We want to target the markets that present the biggest challenges for customers trying to maintain ongoing licensing due diligence. Of course, those markets can also be more complicated from a technology perspective. Some regulators make information available in formats that aren’t as accessible or as clean as the UKGC registers. Others place different expectations on operators and their commercial partners.

We would always look to engage with the regulator in a new market, or at least have conversations to understand what information is available and how we can use it effectively. There will inevitably be challenges we haven’t encountered yet, but we have considerable regulatory and operational experience within the founding team. We’re confident that once we understand how a particular jurisdiction works, we can adapt the platform to provide something useful for customers.

I’m not ready to announce specific markets yet, but our focus will be on jurisdictions where the compliance challenges are significant and where we believe LiSense can make a meaningful difference.

How much of the future development roadmap will be driven by your customers, and how much will come from advances in the underlying technology?

Our roadmap has always been defined by our partners, and that’s something we want to continue because it keeps us very close to the market. We’re regularly discussing the platform with customers, understanding how they’re using it and identifying additional functionality that would make their lives easier. At the same time, we have our own ambitions to scale the business, expand internationally and develop the technology.

What we’re finding is that the features customers are requesting are often things we’re already interested in developing. It’s therefore less about choosing between customer demands and our own plans, and more about prioritising what comes next. The technology is developing quickly, and we’ve deliberately built LiSense in a way that allows us to expand its capabilities. But we want that development to remain grounded in what customers actually need.

Finally, where do you ultimately see LiSense going? Will it remain a specialist licence-monitoring platform, or could it develop into a broader regulatory intelligence and compliance business?

Our intention at the moment is to remain focused on the gambling industry. We want to continue scaling the business, improving the product and adding functionality that delivers genuine value to customers. International expansion is a major part of that. We want to enter new markets, address the challenges those jurisdictions present and provide better coverage for businesses operating across multiple territories.

Beyond the next couple of years, who knows? Technology is moving quickly, and the capabilities available to us could be very different by then. But for now, our priorities are clear. We’re focused on our customers, growing the business, bringing more partners onto the platform and expanding into new markets to meet their needs. There’s a substantial opportunity to improve how ongoing licensing compliance is managed within gambling, and that’s where we’re concentrating our efforts.