One month into the existence of the gambling industry's powerful new watchdog, Peter Dean is reflecting on the public outcry that greeted the biggest overhaul in gambling laws for almost 40 years.

In an interview with the Financial Times, the chairman of the Gambling Commission says that media hostility to plans for Las Vegas-style super-casinos in the run-up to the general election missed the point of the wide-ranging legislative shake-up. Rather than pave the way for an invasion of Las Vegas casino companies, he says the legislation aims to reform out-of-date laws that "creaked" and were "hopelessly inadequate in the era of the microchip and the internet".