UK Demands Fairer and Safer Gambling

The newest statement release from Great Britain's official regulator, United Kingdom Gambling Commission, concerns the need for making the general gambling environment in the country safer for minors and fairer for customers.

With this aim, the Commission has come up with a new set of rules that online operators will have to adhere to.

An open consultation preceded the formulation of these principles that will establish the process of verifying and identifying users' details such as age and identity much faster and with greater precision.

New rules will come into effect on May 7th.

Children First

One major change is the alteration of the time period required by online operators to verify players' age...

...Up until now, the timeframe for this was 72 hours. New guidelines demand that gambling businesses verify customers' age before they can deposit funds into their account or gamble with either their own money or a free bet bonus.

Websites will no longer allow their punters to cash out any of their winnings unless the age verification is fully completed. If the person in question turns out to be underage, the stakes will have to be returned.

This change also applies to free-to-play games on operators' sites...

...Namely, age verification will have to be undertaken even in the instance of playing for fun (with no real money wagering). The Commission argues that “there is no legitimate reason why they should be available to children.”

Better Prevention of Criminal Activities

Very frequently – in about 15% of occasions – customers complained to the UKGC about operators requesting additional forms of ID and other documents allegedly needed to withdraw their funds.

According to a March 2018 decree, this is considered an unfair treatment of customers, so a new set of rules has been devised that require licensees to:

• verify the name, address and date of birth of a customer as a minimum required for them to gamble
• inform customers of types of identity documents required, instances in which they will be required and ways in which they can be supplied to operator BEFORE they can deposit funds
• ask for any additional information promptly and on time

These changes should provide sturdier prevention of gambling-related harm and detection of criminal activity but will also mean that operators cannot ask for customers' ID as a condition of cashing out. These steps will also ensure that a self-excluded player that attempts to gamble will be identified in time, both by regulator's own schemes and online multi-operator system, Gamstop.

Biggest Must Mean Safest and Fairest

In the words of Gambling Commission Chief Executive, Neil McArthur, “Britain's online gambling market is the largest regulated market in the world and we want to make sure it is the safest and the fairest.”

“Today’s changes follow our review of online gambling and our ongoing widespread regulatory action into the online sector. We will keep using our powers to raise standards for consumers.”

He added that these changes will protect both underage and vulnerable individuals and will “reduce the risk of crime linked to gambling.”

Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Wright, comments:

“These significant changes mean operators must check someone’s age before they gamble, and not after. They rightly add an extra layer of protection for children and young people who attempt to gamble online. By extending strong age verification rules to free-to-play games we are creating a much safer online environment for children, helping to shut down a possible gateway to gambling- related harm.”

Source:

“New rules to make online gambling in Britain fairer and safer”, gamblingcommission.gov.uk, February 7, 2019.