Thank you for contacting me about online gambling.
For many, gambling can be entertaining, but I recognise that it can also become a serious problem. In the new digital landscape, work is needed to get the balance right between protecting consumer freedoms and protecting people from harm.
The Gambling White Paper strikes this balance, proposing the most comprehensive reforms to the gambling sector since the Gambling Act 2005. Responding to the risks of online gambling, measures include: new stake limits for online slots games, associated with large losses and long sessions; background checks to protect those most at risk; plus rules to prevent bonus offers including free bets from harming vulnerable people.
There are proposals to increase protections for young people, who can be particularly vulnerable to gambling harms. This includes closing loopholes so that under-18s cannot gamble online, or via fruit machines which pay out cash.
Gambling industry regulatory systems will be strengthened so that they work in consumers’ interests. The Gambling Commission will get increased powers to tackle black market operators. A new non-statutory ombudsman will be created to deal with disputes where a customer suffers losses due to an operator breaching their social responsibility requirements.
These proposals build on existing protections. The Gambling Commission has introduced rules to ensure operators robustly verify customers’ age and identity. Furthermore, in 2020, the Government and Commission bolstered protections, including banning credit card gambling and making participation in the self-exclusion scheme GAMSTOP mandatory for online operators.
I appreciate concerns over the impact of the Gambling Commission’s consultation, specifically in regard to financial risk and player protection checks. I want to stress that the proposals focused on more prescriptive requirements for operators to identify and intervene with the highest spending minority of customers who may be at particular risk of harm.
Having worked closely with the Gambling Commission, the Government considers it necessary to put new obligations on operators to conduct checks to understand if a customer’s gambling is likely to be unaffordable and harmful, as set out in the White Paper. However, these enhanced checks are narrowly targeted, and are estimated to affect around 3 per cent of online gambling accounts. The checks will also be frictionless for customers, and based on data sharing. The Gambling Commission has consulted on new obligations on operators to conduct checks to understand if a customer’s gambling is likely to be harmful in the context of their financial circumstances, in the form of financial vulnerability checks and financial risk assessments. Following the consultation, the Gambling Commission has amended the customer interaction guidance. The guidance now states that "operators should aim to identify those experiencing or at risk of harm and intervene to try to reduce harm at the earliest opportunity. Reliance on deposit or loss thresholds that are set too high will result in failing to detect some customers who may be experiencing significant harms associated with their gambling. It is therefore imperative that threshold levels are set appropriately. Open source data exists which can help operators assess affordability for their GB customer base and improve their risk assessment for customer interactions. Thresholds should be realistic, based on average available income for your customers."
Thank you again for taking the time to contact me.
Kind regards,
Graham