Zona de Azar UK – United Kingdom: UKGC Launches a Protection Plan for Bettors

U.K.- August 30, 2024 www.zonadeazar.com The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has provided an update on affordability checks as the regulator prepares to launch a six-month project on financial risk assessments.

The Commission announced on May 1, 2024, that it would consider launching a draft of its “light-touch” and frictionless financial risk assessments starting August 30, the following Friday.

UKGC Aims to Identify Problem Gamblers

In May, the UKGC initiated a four-step plan, hoping to adopt regulatory changes that will affect “remote gaming projects, terms and conditions for direct marketing, light financial vulnerability checks, and stricter processes to support age checks in facilities.”

Once launched, the project will last for six months to apply light financial vulnerability checks with an initial deposit limit of £500 per month for customers. Subsequently, the project aims to reduce the deposit limit to £150 per month before February 28, 2025.

This amount will be a mandatory limit for affordability checks that online operators will apply to protect players from significant financial losses.

Before the project’s launch, Helen Rhodes, Director of Assessments and Major Policy Projects at the UKGC, reaffirmed that the goal is to test the feasibility of introducing risk assessments to identify and support high-spending online gaming customers facing financial difficulties, with minimal impact on recreational customers.

The project is being conducted with credit agencies and online betting operators to examine the potential impacts of deposit limits on customers, where “the assessments are not being implemented in a real-world environment.”

“We want to address cases where customers have been able to bet large amounts without any verification or support, which later was found to have caused significant harm,” Rhodes continued.

Project to Prioritize High-Risk Account Identification

To address these challenges, the project will prioritize identifying high-risk accounts, and the UKGC aims to test “how operators can receive limited information to understand the severity of these financial difficulties in order to take action to support the customer.”

Rhodes added: “This would allow operators in the future to analyze other indicators of harm and adapt customer care, from reducing marketing, encouraging the use of deposit limits to altering customer relationships. When no financial difficulties are identified, the operator will not need to take any action.”

Pillars of the Initiative

The main pillars of the project criteria include affordability checks that will be assessed in terms of efficiency. The regulator aims to determine the number of players who will smoothly undergo a financial risk assessment.

In the Gambling Act Review White Paper, the UKGC estimated that around 80% of players would undergo a planned financial risk assessment without any issues.

Rhodes’ statement said: “If thresholds were set in line with those proposed in the consultation, this would mean that approximately 3% of accounts would be verified. We are testing if 80% or more of this small proportion being monitored would experience no friction.”

Thus, a second criterion will evaluate the speed and efficiency of credit reference agencies in processing assessments and returning results to operators.

Under the “relevance and accuracy of data” pillar, the UKGC will evaluate whether credit references provide effective evidence of financial vulnerability compared to other data sources.

The assessment will be completed with a final evaluation of technical implementation. Accessibility data will be considered, which can be best presented to operators and then implemented in customer interaction processes.

The Commission suggested that the project be accompanied by a broader investigation into:

• Affordability controls
• Evidence and stakeholder feedback

Thus, if the measure is successful, it could lead to the implementation of mandatory financial risk assessments.

Edited by: @_fonta www.zonadeazar.com