When 2017 rolls around, online bookmakers in the UK will have a plan in store to tighten up the gambling industry’s social responsibility. The plan will help to develop a national self-exclusion scheme by the UK Gambling Commission. The latest update to the Commission’s License Conditions and Codes of Practice, which fills in the structure of the 2005 Gambling Act, has much stronger requirements aimed at taking care of problem gambling.
The aim is to protect players, young people, and others who may find themselves as potential victims to gambling-related harm. It also suggested a need to debate whether or not players of gaming machines should be registered. Changes include operators’ employees forced to be able to watch customers on gambling premises. They must be able to identify those at risk of gambling-related harm.
Land-based operators must have a plan in place by April 2016 which would allow a customer to make a single request to self-exclude from all gambling-related operators within their area, which include where they live and work. An additional measure is in place that makes marketing of free bets open, transparent and not misleading.
Online operators must provide “time-out” facilities where players would take a break from gambling, and offer players a chance to set a timed on-screen check which would show players how much they are spending and offer them a chance for self-exclusion.
