CMA investigation shakes up UK online gambling promotions structure

February 1, 2018 5:50 PM
  • CDC Gaming Reports
February 1, 2018 5:50 PM
  • CDC Gaming Reports

After the conclusion of a lengthy Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation into online gaming promotions, it looks like the industry in the UK is set for a significant shake-up regarding bonus terms and conditions, play-through requirements, and withdrawal options on winnings.

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Three major firms – Ladbrokes, William Hill, and PT Entertainment, the operator behind TitanBet – have already agreed to change their promotions in the face of the regulator’s review, making statements to the press in support of these concerns and changes and acknowledging that they were reasonable.

The CMA has been widely quoted across the national press as stating that gambling operators must “stop unfair online promotions” and has concluded that, if operators do not generally cease to offer high playthrough requirements on sign-up and other types of bonuses, they will find themselves liable to prosecution by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The regulator stopped short of stating that bookmakers had already breached consumer protection law, repeatedly stressing the point that any agreement to make changes was not an admission of any breach of law.

What this all amounts to is that players will no longer face playthrough requirements on their own winnings. Bonus playthrough is also expected to be limited, although of course operators are free to choose to offer far smaller bonuses in that case.

The CMA has further determined that firms must make terms of wagering far clearer for all players, and that players must not be compelled to participate in publicity stunts in order to collect their winnings.

The authority’s principle concerns raised through the review concern two things. The degree to which the odds become even worse for players faced with high playthrough requirements is, arguably, exploitative in itself, and the CMA furthermore expressed concern about this mechanism encouraging players to play for longer than they had initially intended. In other words, the CMA is concerned that the very structure of the betting promotion would encourage players to overstep the initial personal bounds which they might have set for their own play.

Logically, this could increase the risk of someone tipping towards a troublesome relationship with their own play, and spiralling into some sort of problem gambling scenario – even someone relatively new to online gambling, which a good percentage of new signups to a site must necessarily be.