UK: Gambling Commission Says GAMSTOP May Be Unfit for Purpose

May 25, 2018 3:00 AM
  • CDC Gaming Reports
May 25, 2018 3:00 AM
  • CDC Gaming Reports

The UK national press has gained access to a letter, purported to have been sent by UK Gambling Commission Executive Director Tim Miller to the Remote Gaming Association (RGA), in which he refers to “unacceptable faults” contained within the responsible gambling service GAMSTOP. This government-backed service to aid in self-exclusion for online gaming has been delayed in development; it was originally slated for release in late 2017.

Story continues below

Miller was quoted as saying he had “yet to see proper evidence of the effectiveness” of GAMSTOP, and an investigative enquiry into the service by the Guardian found that it was relatively easy to register with several blocked services simply through using an incorrect surname on the account. Another area in the service that Miller cited as lacking was its apparent failure to block promotional gambling material in the form of advertising and emails. He went further than this, in fact, stating that the Commission would be willing to demand that operators present on the list of blocked services did not send any promotional material to anyone registered with the GAMSTOP service, which would be one fairly surefire way of closing this particular hole in the existing scope of the service.

Until the Gambling Commission determines GAMSTOP to be ready to roll out as a full service, signing up to it as a gambling provider in the UK remains optional, but once it is officially launched, being on its books will be a firm condition of any person or entity that holds a gambling license issued by the Commission. This in itself makes it a first for the UK, and well worth creating, but any new endeavour on this scale is bound to have its teething problems.

GAMSTOP will be an industry first when it does get released, but that won’t prevent it from having commercial competition; several apps now in development offer self-exclusion to device users, usually at a price. In order to be a real hit with the public, GAMSTOP not only needs to offer a robust self-exclusion service, but to ensure that that service is comparable to the tech being offered by commercial entities. At least, covering fundamentals such as ad blocking would seem to be an essential feature. How will blocking someone’s ability to play help if gamblers are constantly bombarded with incentives and exhortations to play? It seems fairly likely that such a situation may well inadvertently encourage recipients to break the block somehow, either through submitting false information to a registered site or through the use of unlicensed and unregulated sites. Both of these are terrible outcomes for both player safety and the licensed industry.

Bear this in mind before you consider submitting false information to register on a betting site: do you really think they will be legally bound to pay out, if and when you actually win? If you don’t draw the line at personal dignity, or public honesty, draw it for good old basic financial self-interest. You’re not going to get that money, ever. In all seriousness, however, few betting sites currently require submission of legal ID as a part of the registration process, making it very hard to perfect any self-exclusion system meant to apply to them all.