By Gavin Mackintosh-
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has announced new rules that will guarantee fairness from rogue operators, who up until now have exploited some of its customers. The new rules compel operators to ensure customers’ age and identity quicker and more efficiently.
Under the current rules, operators can take up to 72 hours to conduct age and identity verification checks. Customers hsve complained of unfairness, after being unable to withdraw their winnings during this period until their age had been verified. Under aged individuals were denied when they tried to cash their winnings. Operators will now be under an obligation to verify a customer’s age before they can make a deposit and before they can bet at that operator, either with their own funds or with a bonus or free bet type offer
Additionally, operators must also verify age and identity before customers can play free-to-play games on their websites or platforms. The Commission stated that its reasoning behind this move is, despite the games not containing prizes and therefore not strictly being gambling, there is “no legitimate reason they should be available to children”.
Remote licenses will be required to verify, as a minimum, the name, address and date of birth of a customer before allowing them to gamble ask for any additional verification information promptly, inform customers, before they can deposit funds, of the types of identity documents or other information that might be required, the circumstances in which the information might be required, and how it should be supplied to the licensee take reasonable steps to ensure that information on their customers’ identities remains accurate.
HARM PREVENTION
The changes are expected to help operators prevent harm or detect criminal activity because they have more information about their customers. In addition, the changes will mean that operators cannot demand that customers submit ID as a condition of cashing out, if they could have asked for that information earlier. The new rules expose the unethical and unfair system conducted by online operators before now, and are due to come into force from May 7 2019. This questions whether in the meantime, the scandalous operations o=f many online gambling operators will continue.
The changes will increase the likelihood that someone will be identified if they attempt to gamble while self-excluded. This applies equally to the operator’s own self-exclusion schemes and the online multi-operator self-exclusion scheme, Gamstop. This is because effective verification by operators will mean that a customer will not be verified, and therefore unable to gamble, until they provide correct details. These details will then be checked against both the operator’s own self-exclusion database and the verified data held by Gamstop.
Neil McArthur, Gambling Commission Chief Executive, said: “These changes will protect children and the vulnerable from gambling-related harm, and reduce the risk of crime linked to gambling. They will also make gambling fairer by helping consumers collect their winnings without unnecessary delay.’’
“Britain’s online gambling market is the largest regulated market in the world and we want to make sure it is the safest and the fairest. Today’s changes follow our review of online gambling and our ongoing widespread regulatory action into the online sector. We will keep using our powers to raise standards for consumers.”
Jeremy Wright, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said:
“These significant changes mean operators must check someone’s age before they gamble, and not after. They rightly add an extra layer of protection for children and young people who attempt to gamble online. By extending strong age verification rules to free-to-play games we are creating a much safer online environment for children, helping to shut down a possible gateway to gambling- related harm.”