Nigel Huddleston, the UK sports minister, has called for the largest betting operators in the country to make sure they accompany their adverts with “safer gambling” messages to protect customers. In a letter sent to the chief executive officers of Flutter Entertainment, GVC Holdings, William Hill, bet365 and SkyBet, the sports minister called for them to go beyond the measures proposed by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) in the 10-point pledge, which it has recently unveiled and which was earmarked as “weak” by Members of Parliament.
The British Government has urged local gambling companies to invest more efforts to prevent vulnerable individuals from being affected by addiction to online gambling during the coronavirus lockdown.
In his letter sent to the five aforementioned gambling operators, the sports minister highlighted the increased risk for local gamblers during the ongoing lockdown, saying that messages warning of gambling-related harm need to be more obvious to all potential customers.
Despite there has not been much information about the volume of gambling advertising since the coronavirus shutdown and social isolation began, some evidence has emerged that gambling companies are doing their best to lure UK customers to their online gambling services by boosting the number of adverts for their digital services, particularly on social media, in order to compensate for the losses that are being generated by their retail units.
Online Gambling Popularity Has Been Rising During Coronavirus Lockdown, UKGC Says
The major gambling regulatory body in the country, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), has already reported there have been signs of an increase in the use of digital gambling services, and more specifically, online casino games. Unfortunately, this increase is also associated with higher gambling addiction rates.
According to some information revealed by the gambling watchdog, approximately 9.2% of online slot machine and casino users seem to be predisposed to developing a serious compulsive gambling behaviour. In comparison, that percentage rate is 2.5% for online sports betting.
Recently, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has confirmed there has also been an increase in gambling-related complaints since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.
Taking into account all this, Minister Huddleston has explained that the gambling companies should expect a demand from the UKGC to provide detailed information about the gambling patterns of their customers during the retail gambling sector’s shutdown that would be used to determine whether the operators need to invest more efforts into strengthening their customer protection measures.
In addition, Mr Huddleston urged the gambling companies to speed up the review led by the gambling watchdog aimed at examining potential curbs on so-called VIP schemes, game designs and contemporary advertising technology. Furthermore, he asked the operators to bring updates to their plans to increase the spending of the gambling sector on problem gambling research and restrictions.
- Author
Daniel Williams
