The U.K.’s major gaming providers are anxiously awaiting the release of the white paper and its recommendations for changes to the 2005 Gambling Act. They want standards, but want them to strike a balance between consumer protection and overprotection.
Pavlos Sideris, director of Double Up Media, told Yogonet, that providers yearn for an end to the uncertainty, but not standards that are inordinately stricter than the protections they are already providing.
Now that a new prime minister and government have been installed, the long-awaited white paper’s release could come at any time.
Providers that already have implemented rules on deposit and stake limits include Flutter, Gamesys and Entain. These companies and others are working privately with regulators to try to read their intentions and perhaps beat them to the punch.
Entain was the first British provider to adopt personal stake limits and credit checks, employing data already available. It has said it plans to use artificial intelligence to identify players at risk and impose revenue limits.
This was followed by the announcement last year of a £500 monthly limit for players under 25 by Flutter. It explained that this age group has many significant life events that occur, which warrant the extra care. Flutter’s research tells it there is widespread and strong support for more measures to protect young consumers.
At this time no online gaming operators have implemented maximum stake rules, even though that form of gaming is by far the most popular and lucrative. U.K. Gambling Commission statistics indicate that online games generated £6.9 billion in gross gambling yield between March 2020 and April 2021. Stake limits would without doubt lower those numbers.
European countries with stake limits include Germany and Sweden. Germany introduced online casinos last year with a 5.3 percent tax for online games and a €1-per-spin slots cap. The country’s sports betting association Deutsche Sportwettenverband (DSWV) argues that this could make the market unattractive without tough sanctions against unlicensed operators.
Sweden began with slot stake caps, but later dropped them. It does have a €460 deposit limit for online casinos and limits sign-up bonus offers to just under €10. This last has drawn criticism for nearly all quarters.
Sweden’s regulator Spelinspektionen recently surveyed more than 4,000 people to find out why they use unlicensed casinos. The biggest reason was bonuses, second came odds and finally that licensed operators listed them as being self-excluded. This led to the conclusion that Sweden’s strict regulations drive players offshore.
This was supported when 16 percent of those surveyed said they used unlicensed operators because of stake limits.
A report issued earlier this year by Britain’s Betting & Gambling Council released a report on offshore operators showing a large increase of activity in Denmark, Italy, Norway, France and the U.K. It states, “jurisdictions with a higher unlicensed market share tend to exhibit one or more restrictive regulatory or licensing characteristics.”
In the U.K., for instance, the black market has increased 100 percent in the last two years. This coincides with the banning of feature-buy and auto-spins, speed of play limits and disallowing credit cards in gaming.
If regulations drive players offshore, say critics, that defeats the purpose of regulations and does a disservice to creating a safe environment for consumers.
