The beginning of the week saw the main gambling regulatory authority unveil its business plan, outlining its focus and major goals for the period 2018-2019. This is the first of the three plans expected to be published over the three-year strategy of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).
The business plan published by the Gambling Commission reveals how the regulatory authority intends to keep the consumers’ interests protected over the next year. In addition, the Commission has unveiled plans to prevent gambling-related harm inflicted on customers and the wider public, optimise the returns to good causes generated by local lottery sector, to improve the way it regulates and raise the overall standards in the UK gambling sector.
The gambling regulatory body also revealed that it intends to push UK gambling industry to design special protections and control measures since the very start of the product development process. The Commission also said that it would remain focused on accelerating the progress being made by gambling operators on consumer interventions and highlighted its commitment to dealing with problem gambling and its possible impact on public health.
In its business plan, the UK gambling regulatory body provided some details about the 2018-2019 fee income it expects to generate in the period, with the figures broken down by types of gambling activity. The largest portion of fee income amounting to approximately 31% is expected to be generated by sports betting. Then, local casinos are expected to account for about 27% of the income, followed by software products representing 17% of projected tax income. Society lotteries, betting machines and arcades come next, with a portion of approximately 8%, 7% and 6%, respectively. Bingo games tax revenues are expected to represent approximately 4% of the overall fee income projected by the Commission.
Key Points in UKGC Business Plan
The UK Gambling Commission unveiled the steps it intends to take in terms of following its major objectives over the 2018-2019 period.
So, in order to protect consumers’ interests, the watchdog explains that it intends to enhance advertising rules, as well as rules related to unfair terms and practices and make an assessment of the customer protection in practice. The Commission further explained that it intends to unveil additional requirements for alternative dispute resolution providers, as well as to explore public attitudes towards gambling advertising. The watchdog is to back a research focused on the gambling advertising’s effects on young individuals and more vulnerable people.
When it comes to protecting customers and the wider public from gambling-related harm, the UK Gambling Commission is set to establish more transparency in the way in which regulatory settlements income is used to back research and innovation into safer gambling. The UK gambling watchdog also intends to assess operator data use in order to reduce gambling-related harm and criminal activity. It is set to deliver enhanced customer protection especially for online gambling in terms of customer verification, interaction and fairness, and also to make evaluation of indicators used for identification of gambling-related harm.
As mentioned above, the UK Gambling Commission has revealed its intentions to raise the local gambling sector standards. The regulatory body intends to do that by conducting strategic assessment of gambling-related harm and crime. It is to also deliver a special programme oriented to unveiling good practices to the entire sector, including publications and events. The Commission is to also help money laundering taskforce (FATF) in the latter’s assessment procedure and push for further changes in case that such are necessary.
Casino Guardian has recently revealed that the Gambling Commission is set to optimise the returns that are distributed to good causes from local lotteries. The watchdog is to provide customers with better information about the funds raised by local society lotteries and how they are used. It is also set to develop its National Lottery Good Cause Returns model and provide an official response to the Camelot’s strategy to increase good causes returns.
Last but not least, the Commission revealed some of the key points in its strategy to improve the way it regulates the local gambling market. The regulator said that it is to establish a panel related to advisory functions, and to deliver the second and third phases of its project to make licensing process more simple, automated transparent.
- Author
Daniel Williams
