British gambling charity organisation GambleAware has backed new findings of the Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) and called for more gambling companies to start offering their customers the flexibility to set their own deposit limits. A recent study found that the presence of high-value options found in gambling websites encourage customers to opt for higher deposit limits.
Deposit limit tools are already being present in the majority of online gambling sites in the UK, with customers usually required to choose from some pre-defined options available in a dropdown menu at the time of their registration with an online gambling operator. The available options vary, with the largest deposit limit that is available in some gambling websites sometimes being as high as £100,000.
A total of 1,700 bet365 customers took part in the BIT study, which was aimed at analysing whether finer adjustments on sign-up would impact the playing habits of customers. Such adjustments could provide effective information that could be used by gambling operators to reduce player risks.
A trial was set out to help the researchers determine whether the current state of deposit limits functions affects the gambling behaviours of players in any way. The BIT researchers wanted to check whether so-called “anchoring” had psychological effects on customers’ betting habits once they are able to establish their own deposit limits.
Absence of Maximum Deposit Option Could Improve Deposit Limits Tools’ Efficacy, Researchers Claim
The Consumer Markets Principal Advisor of BIT, Rosanna Barry, described the latest report as the culmination of some hard detailed work that is aimed at demonstrating how some changes to the way online gambling operators offer their deposit tools could make a difference.
The participating bet365 customers were basically given three variations of the deposit limit they could choose from. The first group of variations was the current deposit limit setting tool. The second group included access to a dropdown menu offering low-value deposit suggestions and a £250 maximum betting limit. However, customers were also given a text box where they could freely type a higher deposit limit amount. The third group deposit limit options only involved a blank text box so customers were able to choose the desired deposit limit themselves.
As revealed by the Behavioural Insights Team, when the results of the three groups were compared against the results of a control group, the researchers found that the absence of a maximum deposit option accounted for almost half of the average daily deposit limits set by customers.
The research recommended that gambling companies should not provide any values in their deposit limit tools. Researchers explained that operators should present their customers with a blank text box featuring no suggestions for a minimum or maximum betting limit. According to BIT’s research team, more freedom given to users to choose their own deposit limits is likely to improve the efficacy of deposit limit tools.
Following the BIT research results’ announcement, GambleAware has called for the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) to list blank textbox deposit limits in its Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) as the preferred deposit limit setting mechanism.
- Author
Daniel Williams
