Whenever something goes wrong or there’s a need to prevent something from happening, all participants in the gambling industry can feel safe knowing that there’s an institution that has their back.
We all know that it’s the Gambling Commission for England, Scotland and Wales and today, it is on a mission to incorporate some useful methods that are going to help them keep things secure and at the same time, protect gamblers.
What Is It Going To Do?
The leading UK regulator is continuously working on enhancing the situation in the industry. Recently, it applied various regulations to make things safer for the British consumers and then in March, it stood against credit cards claiming that there are more useful and securer payment methods.
Today, it has created a business plan for this and the forthcoming year that is going to put players in the center of attention. Namely, it wants to prevent any damage that is in correlation with this industry and generally raise standards.
What Does This Project Highlight?
The primary goal of this plan is to set certain milestones that the UKGC will each within a year. All these ideas are part of its strategy to drastically make changes through 2021.
Commission chief executive, Neil McArthur, commented on this situation by saying:
“We put consumers at the heart of our approach, which requires us to strike a balance between the enjoyment people get from gambling and the risks that gambling can present.
Managing those risks is not just the responsibility of the individual consumer, and that is why we assess risks by looking at the providers of gambling, the products that are offered and the places in which people gamble.
Our approach allows us to respond to emerging risks and issues, whilst constantly seeking ways to drive up standards.”
Determining The Priorities:
As we stated previously, users always come first, hence the Gambling Commission will firstly appoint certain actions and set them as priorities, such as asking for evidence on utilizing credit cards to finance gambling and player protection controls for Category B gaming machines.
Furthermore, it is also planning on investigating Category C and D machines, as well as analyzing game design. In case it comes to conclusion that current controls are not effective enough, it will implement new, upgraded rules.
Besides all these things we listed above, the UKGC will also enhance various harm prevention measures by releasing a new National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms. Moreover, this will probably come into force at some point in April. Of course, this doesn’t mean that this brand-new strategy is going to be good enough, therefore, it will carefully supervise its effects to see how it affects the industry.
Finally, it will also cooperate with the Advertising Standards Authority in order to designate how gambling advertising is impacting children, those who are susceptible to gambling addiction and young people.
Source: “GC Targets Fairer And Safer Gambling Market In Year Ahead” https://www.igamingbusiness.com/news/gc-targets-fairer-and-safer-gambling-market-year-ahead. iGaming Business. April 18, 2019.