Gambling firms required to establish customer affordability

A proposed crackdown on gambling could soon require operators to establish exactly how much customers can afford to spend and that in doing this, limits will need to be set. The proposals came as part of a huge swath of new measures that are currently being proposed by the Gambling Commission.  

The Commission, who currently regulate the fines that are proposed for rule breaches, want to ensure that action is taken to prevent customers from gambling beyond their means. It believes that these suggestions will allow operators to identify potentially problem gamblers and identify customers who may at be risk of gambling beyond their means.

The suggestions could use household income and earnings data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to allow operators to make decisions on limits and affordability. 

The Commission said that under these proposals, operators will be expected to “set limits on consumers’ spending until affordability checks have been conducted.” 

The new terms, which would be added to current licenses, would place a burden on the operators to actively and closely monitor the betting activities of customers. The Commission suggested that operators would have to watch for known indicators, these included chasing loses, erratic betting patterns or betting high stakes following a win.  

However, it added that a number of other signs should also be added to the list, including the time of day, the frequency of bets, large losses and the use of more than one betting method.  

If operators do breach these conditions, they could face harsh fines or the revocation of their UK licenses.  

The Commission told the firms that they would be expected “to take social responsibility seriously for all customers override customer protection.”

The suggestions will no doubt concern UK gambling regulators, who have recently received a request to provide information to a consultation on a potential new ban on credit cards.  

The UK’s regulated online gambling industry is the largest in the world and posted profits of £4.7bn in 2017, a 10% increase on the previous year.