The gambling industry in the United Kingdom has been subject to several changes over the past couple of years, some good and others bad. Some of the most prominent changes have been geared towards ensuring responsibility especially on the part of the gaming operators. To that effect, the gambling commission on Tuesday, May 7 began enforcing its new rules and regulations pertaining to age and identity and verification on online gambling platforms.
The new very strict rules on age and identity checks are among some of the changes that were introduced to the provisions of the commission’s Social Responsibility Code (SRC). Already, the regulator had issued a publication following an open consultation response that outlined and explanations for the numerous changes that are set to make online gambling safer and fairer.
Most notably, the new rules are designed to add an extra layer of protection against underage gambling which has been on the rise – a recent audit report published by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission revealed that the number of children who have suffered gambling-related harm had quadrupled in the past two years. This brings the number of young people between the ages of 11 and 16 who have compulsive gambling issues to about 55,000.
Needless to say, these figures are alarming and the gambling commission has been under immense pressure to deal with the issue. This is part of the reason why the new rules were crafted.
Now, the gaming operators will be required to verify the ages and identities of their new customers before allowing them to make deposits to their online casino accounts. Previously, there was a three-day grace period within which the online gaming companies were allowed to perform the verification checks – this was a loophole that enabled underage gambling.
“All affected operators are expected to comply with the new LCCP. This means that from Tuesday 7 May if an operator has not yet verified the name, address, and date of birth of any customer, they will need to have completed verification before allowing that customer to gamble. Operators will, therefore, need to prevent any unverified customer from gambling until they have gone through the verification process,” the gambling commission wrote.
More Initiatives to Complement the New Rules
To complement the gambling commission’s new rules, it has the organization has also recently unveiled a detailed strategy that will help it to combat the burning issue of underage gambling. Known as the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms, the new framework, is not only meant to help the commission to gain a better understanding of the impact of gambling on young people but also make it much easier for it to implement prevention and education initiatives where they will have the most impact.
Hopefully, these new initiatives will work as expected since the survival of the country’s gaming industry and its consumer base highly depends on how successful they are.
