Spotlight Sports Group (SSG), which owns the Racing Post outlet, forecasts tighter gambling regulations coming to the U.K., SBC News reports.
This is part of a decade of debate across Europe where several countries have updated their regulatory frameworks. SSG reported: “In Europe, many countries that have legal sports betting and/or igaming regulations in place have begun to introduce stricter rules and regulations for operators and affiliates in the past year-plus,” adding “Some of the countries have established markets while others have only recently legalized gaming, however, the common theme is to protect potential bettors from specific types of marketing.”
After a four-year wait, the U.K. government finally released the white paper review of the Gambling Act of 2005. One major proposal was to impose “frictionless” financial risk checks, which had been previously proposed by former Gambling Minister Paul Scully.
The trigger for such a check would be a loss limit of £125 within a month and £500 within a year. Higher levels of spending would trigger more detailed checks. Currently these are just proposals, and more consultations will take place this summer before they are implemented, says the government.
According to the SSG report: “Greater restrictions are coming to the UK gambling market in the near future. Depending on the effects of the gambling white paper, strategies of operators and affiliates may need to be adjusted.”
SSG warns that consumers will further bristle at affordability checks. It cites a Racing Post survey of 10,000 U.K. bettors where 17 percent had been asked by operators to do an affordability check, and 55 percent refused. At the same time two-thirds of those who have not been subject to such a check said they would refuse.
This calls into question the entire concept of “frictionless” checks, writes Chris Book, a reporter for the Racing Post.
According to the report, the average U.K. bettor aged 18-50 will spend 30 minutes researching a wager. This can create a niche for affiliates to provide “unbiased” information while protecting consumers from illegal operators.
“As regulators impose strict advertising restrictions to protect potential problem gamblers, the best way forward is to provide bettors with unbiased and actionable content to ensure the decisions they are making are as educated as possible,” it concludes.
