Tag Archives: Gambling Commission

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On July 10, 2018, The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) published a ground-breaking approach to understanding the extent of harm that gambling could have caused on the society and its members.

Gambling CommissionThe investigations and authoring of the report were led by Dr. Heather Wardle, who represented the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB) – a gambling regulatory body in the country. Publication of the report follows coordination and collaboration of efforts among UKGC, RGSB, and GambleAware – which funded the initiative.

Gambling has been touted to cause social, financial, and health problems among the people directly involved and even their family members. However, there lacks a scientific and verifiable measure to ascertain the level of damage. The approach seeks to measure the harm caused by gambling on the society.

The report is a major stride into the development of a causal relationship between social challenges and gambling. It calls for views, from the general public, on ways that can be used in measuring and better understanding the social cost that results in the likely harm caused by gambling.

The opinions that will be received from the call and effort of the team will guide the mapping out of a methodology that will henceforth be used in quantifying the impacts of gambling of finances, health, and relationships. In line with that goal, UKGC, RGSB, and GambleAware intend to develop a standard definition of gambling-related harm that can be used by stakeholders such as public health officials, lawmakers, and policymakers. The report acknowledges that the impacts of gambling could be short-lived while in other instances, they could last longer and spread to family members and even the society. Having an agreed upon definition will allow a common view and understanding of the problem.

UKGC’s report is also seeking to make the economic and social impacts of gambling-related harms measurable, easy to monitor, and better understood. It acknowledges that the society today lacks a defined way of determining whether social and economic problems affecting a person are associated with their gambling habit.

The team also intends to use the information gathered, from their research and opinions from other players, to develop a framework for action that will enable individuals, their families, and communities better understand the impacts of gambling-related harm. The report is seeking to have a more responsive British society that will be alive to the challenges that gambling is having on them.

UKGC and RGSB are committed to coming up with the most effective way that will be used in measuring social and economic costs of gambling-afflicted harm going forward. When unveiling the approach, Gambling Commission’s Chief Executive Officer, Neil McArthur said that their efforts were only ground-breaking and more needed to be done to realize their goal. He indicated the willingness of the commission to support public health officials, the gambling industry, and the public work together in raising opinions so that a framework for prevention is realized.

McArthur also said that while a majority of gamblers do not suffer the negative consequences, the commission, as a gambling watchdog, could not hide from the fact that possible detrimental effects are affecting a significant number of locals, families, and communities.

The report’s lead author, Dr. Wardl, described it as a major step in understanding gambling and the harm it can have on the society. She expressed optimism in the process as stakeholders had already made the first step of recognizing that gambling can affect more people in the family, community, and society.

Marc Etches, the Chief Executive Officer at Gamble Aware emphasized that gambling is a public health issue. “We need urgently to improve our understanding of what gambling, and its wide-reaching knock-on effects, is costing us,” he said.

 

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The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB) has recently conducted a study focusing on the gambling problem that is continuously affecting our young generation, especially the teenagers.

Gambling ProblemGamble Aware, which is an industry charity has strongly supported this move, saying it could help in saving our children from falling victims to this dangerous trap known as betting. The RGSB has now informed government stakeholders as well as the UKGC on the exposure of young persons to gamble. The personal safety of these young individuals could also be compromised.

The RGSB has tabled a series of recommendations for the industry stakeholders and the government. This is to initiate the drive of implementing a stronger verification process for the players, cooperate in collecting the under 18 data regularly, as well as reducing marketing exposure to the youngsters.

The RGSB has now released its findings on child gambling, and at the same time, Gamble Aware has heightened its preparedness in launching a campaign for safer gambling all over the United Kingdom. This is being done with the main purpose to raise awareness of the problems associated with gambling, and enlighten the public of the health hazards of gambling and other harms that relate to the same. The RGSB has detailed that the number of children (mostly the teens) affected the gambling are in excess of 35,000. Furthermore, there could be more than 50,000 children at the teenage level who could be at the risk of falling into this trap.

According to Gamble Aware, through the remarks of Chief Executive Marc Etches, fighting gambling-related problems require firm regulatory action. He said that there is a great concern for our children as for every 10 teenagers, one is a regular gambler. He also welcomed the focus that the Gambling Commission has put into this issue, so as to protect the children from being brainwashed by this problem early in life.

Marc Etches suggests that if a real and long-lasting impact has to be made, stern action is then required from parents, teachers and other family members. For this to succeed, it’s a dire need to heighten public debate about the position and role of gambling in the society, as well as what best can be done to protect young people and children from being harmed by gambling addiction. The gambling commission, in turn, notes that, a lot of support is required from a wide range of government departments and other influential agencies because it has been recognized that harms related to gambling are health issues and requires the full attention of everyone.

 

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An online gambling firm known as “32Red” was recently issued with a fine of over £2m for failure to protect a compulsive gambler and encouraging the customer to gamble further instead.

The Gambling Commission argues that the company needed to have raised an alarm and done something after identifying several addiction signs exhibited by the customer rather than offer him a VIP status.

Despite the customer depositing amounts as large as £758,000 between 2014 and 2017, 32Red did not conduct money laundering checks or acted to ensure the welfare of the customer as required by the law. Instead of offering assistance and advice, the company gave out free bonuses to encourage the vulnerable customer to play further, said the regulator. In addition, the entity failed to check if the customer was able to afford the amounts they were spending on gambling.

The customer had spent an average of £45,000 per month on gambling in spite of having a net salary of £2,150. Even though they had given the company a proof claiming that they earn a net salary of £13,000 per month, the Gambling Commission argued that it was not credible. The account was only scrutinized a little bit when the customer won a seven-figure prize and then instantly spent all of it on gambling–a warning sign of addiction.

The executive director of the Gambling Commission, Richard Watson, argued that the company should have checked on the client’s welfare after they had exhibited a gambling addiction rather than encouraging them to gamble further. But 32Red did the exact opposite of that.

He went on to say that gambling providers must be ready to take action whenever they spot signs of gambling addiction and should be carefully reviewing all the clients that seem to visit their facilities a lot more times than normal.

Watson concluded his speech by saying that protecting customers from gambling-related problems remains a top priority for the regulator and where it sees gambling companies failing in their duty to keep their clients safe, the regulator will take stern action against those companies.

Kindred, which is the parent company of 32Red agreed to pay the fine and said it had put in place a behavior-monitoring system for the good of its clients. The spokesperson of the Swedish owned multinational that is based in Malta said the organization is making efforts across the board to put together and better business processes, using best practices from all areas of the business.

The company representative further said that as a company putting sustainability at the very core of its business strategy, Kindred remains committed to ensuring customers can enjoy gambling in an environment that is safe as well as secure.

Among the changes and improvements that the company vowed to make include:

  • Introducing a better anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policy to enable better and faster detection of the use of the company’s gambling services by criminals for money laundering or terrorist purposes.
  • Bringing in an external auditor to do a complete audit of the company’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies, procedures as well as controls while the company is ready to accept and implement the auditor’s recommendations.
  • Conducting a complete review of all existing and new customers against revised policies.
  • Integrating all entities under Kindred to one platform, so they work with a unified and aligned policy.

The company plans to raise the over £2m penalty issued by the court by divesting £709,046 off its financial gains and adding that to the £1.3 million fund it set aside as payment in lieu of a financial penalty.