- United Kingdom -
UKGC tightens rules and approach to gambling harm, claims "some operators are still not doing enough"
 

The UK Gambling Commission has introduced new rules to ensure online gambling businesses "do more" to identify and take action to protect consumers at risk of harm. The new rules were released Thursday but will come into effect on 12 September 2022.
The regulatory body will start giving operators direct instructions on how to ensure consumers are not harmed, taking a prescriptive approach, instead of leaving it up to them to decide how to do so. Operators will be required to:

• monitor a specific range of indicators, as a minimum, to identify gambling harm;

• flag indicators of harm and take action in a timely manner;

• implement automated processes for strong indicators of harm;

• prevent marketing and the take-up of new bonuses for at risk customers;

• evaluate their interactions and ensure they interact with consumers at least at the level of problem gambling for the relevant activity;

• evidence their customer interaction evaluation to the Gambling Commission during routine casework;

• comply with these requirements at all times, this includes ensuring the compliance of third-party providers.

New guidance, which operators are required to take account of, will be issued in June to help them understand and comply with the requirements. 

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Yogonet.com, 18 April2021

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- The Netherlands -
KSA issues autoplay warning to Dutch casino operators
 

Online casino operators in the Netherlands have been warned by the regulatory authority, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), over the use of autoplay functionalities. 
The reminder was issued after the KSA received a report from a player who was able to use autoplay on an online gambling machine with an unidentified operator; this practice is prohibited under Dutch law. 
Customers using the site could buy multiple spins on slot games which were played one after the other, with the game repeatedly restarted as long as players still held ‘spin credit’. 
Regulatory research showed that at least three gambling machines on the operator’s site allowed this functionality.
Following the release of the report, the KSA carried out research which showed that this was indeed the case with at least three online gambling machines. 
The licence holder has now disabled the feature from its offering and also removed all online gaming machines with forms of automatic play from its site. 
“A player must make a conscious choice for each subsequent game to continue playing,” the regulator explained.

“From the point of view of consumer protection and the risk of (the development of) gambling addiction, forms of automatic play (autoplay) at online gambling machines are prohibited. In this form of play, the player no longer consciously chooses the next game and loses control.”

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Sbcnews.co.uk, 13 April 2022

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- United Kingdom -
'Flawed' EFL gambling evidence should be ignored
 

"Flawed" evidence submitted to the government's gambling review by the English Football League should be ignored, according to an MP who chairs a parliamentary group for gambling reform.
The EFL, which is sponsored by Sky Bet and whose clubs receive £40m a year from gambling companies, commissioned research, seen by the BBC, which said there was "no evidence" that sponsorship influences participation in betting.
It also said that gambling participation in sport "had remained flat at about 9% of the population between 2010 and 2018" and over the same period "the rate of problem gambling in sports had halved from 6% to 3%".
But a critical assessment of those findings by a research company, Vita, said the results were "flawed" and "misleading" and asked if the analysis was "undertaken to draw a pre-determined conclusion".
The EFL and research author Professor Ian McHale of the University of Liverpool stood by the findings when the critique was presented to them by BBC Sport.
Labour MP and chair of the All Party Group for Gambling Related Harm Carolyn Harris said gambling minister Chris Philp should "choose to ignore" the research in the gambling review, for which a white paper is due to be published within weeks.
Vita's critique, which was commissioned by campaign group Clean Up Gambling, said the research was "faulty" based on using two different types of survey to assess gambling participation and problem gambling rates.
One of those surveys, conducted by the NHS and which runs from 2012 to 2018, cautioned against combining its results from a previous version of the survey because different methods were used to collect data.

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Bbc.com, 8 April 2022

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- Japan -
Backlash in Osaka as ‘Dream Island’ leads race to open Japan’s first casino

The focus of Japan’s quest to open its first casino is a human-made island in Osaka that, if the city’s government gets its way, will end decades of wrangling over the country’s fraught relationship with poker tables and slot machines.
On a recent weekday morning there was little to suggest that Yumeshima – “Dream Island” – could, by the end of the decade, be the site of an unprecedented experiment with gambling in the world’s third biggest economy.
A stream of trucks disappear into an undersea tunnel taking them to the island, while boats laden with soil plough the strip of water separating it from the mainland. From a distance, Yumeshima looks more like a sprawling building site than the possible location for Japan’s answer to Macau or Las Vegas.
Six years after the government legalised casino development, Osaka is vying with nearby Wakayama and the central city of Nagoya to open Japan’s first “integrated resort” – a ¥1tn (£6bn) complex of hotels, conference and entertainment facilities, with a casino as its money-spinning centrepiece.
The western Japanese city is now considered the frontrunner after the local assembly, where the rightwing populist Osaka Ishin no Kai is the strongest party, recently approved a bid that will be sent to the central government by the 28 April deadline.

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Theguardian.com, 12 April 2022

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- United Kingdom -
Only a public health approach can tackle the harm done by gambling

Robin Burgess and Zoë Osmond respond to an editorial about the gambling industry and the need for tighter regulation

"From 2004-06, I ran the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, the body then responsible for raising “voluntary” funds from the industry to pay for research, education and treatment. It was evident then that voluntary funding was inadequate, and I costed full national treatment needs and campaigned internally with the industry and the government to impose a statutory levy to pay for it.
Sixteen years on, it has still not happened. However, I now believe it is utterly misguided. Benson & Hedges doesn’t fund smoking addiction care nor does Carling fund alcohol dependency treatment. It is time the state recognised that gambling addiction is on a par with those problems and should be funded by the public purse, with proper taxation on the gambling industry to support it. The lobbying of the gambling industry on MPs and ministers means that the levy route is doomed to failure, as well as being a cop-out on the government’s responsibility."
Robin Burgess
Northampton

"GambleAware works closely with the Department of Health and Social Care and commissions the National Gambling Treatment Service, bringing together a range of providers, which is well integrated with the NHS. Furthermore, all our work is led by research and is independently evaluated. GambleAware is also a strong supporter of a mandatory levy, is accountable to the Charity Commission and has robust systems of governance in place, ensuring that the gambling industry has absolutely no influence over any of our activity.
Gambling requires a public health approach which includes addressing social vulnerability, prevention and treatment. We are proud of our contribution to the national strategy to reduce gambling harms and continue to support more than 40,000 people each year via the National Gambling Treatment Service."
Zoë Osmond
Chief executive, GambleAware

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Theguardian.com, 16 March 2022