(Newswire.net — November 18, 2019) — Recently an inquire got published that seems to be tackling all the problems in the online casino industry. The British MP’s have already come up with a plan to reduce the damage and bring more regulations to online gambling venues. Even though the report is not fully finished yet it already attracted a lot of attention from the gambling community, largely because the report calls for a radical change of regulations currently in place. The MPs recommend that Online casinos should be subject to maximum stake limits similar to the £2 limits, imposed on fixed-odds betting terminals. The group that includes MPs from different parties, criticizes current law as “analog legislation in a digital age”
Uk isn’t the only one applying stricter regulation on online casinos. Since online gambling venues are generally harder to regulate, tighter grip seems to be necessary. Recently Australia introduced a new ban on all offshore unauthorized online gambling venues. Although problem gambling affects every country, Australia is especially keen on gambling. Right now multiple casinos offering a variety of games, and there’s a low chance that online casinos will become less popular. Authorized venues won’t be affected but the ones that will be operating without any Australian authorization will be blocked and people won’t be able to access them.
The group is cross-party and suggests that the legislation should put more effort into protecting vulnerable people. This group hopes to influence the regulations regarding online gambling despite the outcome of the general election. This initiative has strong support, with the Labor party who initially made the “soft” regulations around this topic under Tony Blais, now taking a different approach and preferring strict regulations. This regulation also has the backing of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who also favors stricter rules.
The report will be published fully in the following weeks but from the very few details that the public has already had access too, we can outline the following suggestions: a £2 stake limit on online slot machines, an end to betting by credit card, Restrictions on “VIP” accounts, an investigation into non-disclosure agreements. This will entail dismissing Labour’s call for the Gambling Act 2005.
Uk has been trying to resolve the online gambling challenges for quite some time now but on the way, it has faced some pushback from the companies themselves. Two months ago, bosses of three of the UK’s largest gambling companies pulled out of the meeting where they were supposed to face questions about their efforts to reduce the dangers of online betting. But after announcing that they would not be attending a lot of MPs were left quite upset, with Carolyn Harris a chair at the all-party parliamentary group on gambling harm calling this move “outrageous”.
The talk was supposed to cover the topic of how these venues could help problem gamblers. This specific interim report from the APPG led by Labour’s Carolyn Harris, Conservative’s Duncan Smith and the SNP’s Ronnie Cowan took all 6 months worth of inquiries including evidence sessions with gambling companies and addicts. In addition to the five main points listen above, this report also suggests the implementation of the affordability checks to make sure customers don’t get into financial difficulties. Most of the casinos and bookmakers only check a person’s finances after they have already lost thousands of dollars. Affordability checks could help the venues to identify those who should be considered high risk and not allowing them to play.
The UK’s betting community has responded and they still claim that they do everything in their power to ensure responsible gambling and to provide a safe experience for all customers, using a wide range of tools that online operators have at their disposal. Brigid Simmons, the chair of the industry’s betting and gaming council said that these venues have algorithms in place that detect those who could potentially be “high risk” gamblers and the venues supposedly interact with these people at an early stage. But the MPs had an answer to that as well. According to them, these gambling companies weren’t able to identify what they considered to be affordable gambling so there was not much they could do to prevent most of the cases that end up being risky and problematic. But the gambling community still insists that just because the report was released earlier than it should’ve been the companies haven’t had the opportunity to gather evidence to support their points.
Either way, the attitudes in the parliament seems to not favor online casinos. It’s evident that there’s more to be done in this regard, to ensure that those vulnerable are more protected and safe. Online casinos could be doing more to protect their problem gamblers and this new report serves as evidence that despite what the official statements are from these venues, their efforts are not as effective as they claim them to be.