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One of the key reasons professional watchdogs need to control current gambling activities has been the growing problem gambling incidence among UK clients.
In recent years, many anti-gambling advocates have expressed concern about the growing number of gamblers who invest more than they can actually afford on gambling-related events, especially those who use their gambling credit cards. In this article, you will discover a few facts about the United Kingdom Gambling Commission politics trends.
Improvements in GamStop Scheme
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission has recently issued a public statement raising questions about the quality standard of the online self-exclusion scheme known as GamStop following its mandatory roll-out for all licensees who need to integrate it. Without any doubt, such instructions may create obstacles for UK players. From that time if they don’t want to collaborate with the self-exclusion scheme they don’t have many options on the UK gambling market. Likely, there are still ways that help you to avoid GamStop self-exclusion and continue play without recent restrictions. As was mentioned, only UKGC licensed operators have to cooperate with GamStop.
UKGC calls for further updates and work to be done on the system until the bulk of operators in the UK, who have collaborated with the system, go live with it. In fact, the regulator wants to make it a prerequisite of obtaining their license to sign up for GamStop.
With the quote below, UKGC's long statement can be better summarized:
"We welcome the development of GamStop and the proactive initiatives they have taken to improve and strengthen the framework. We are happy to see that a significant number of individuals now have protection by signing up, and we hear directly from individuals about the benefits it has offered.
Nevertheless, the system has not yet reached the point that we are willing to prompt the need for all operators to become participants. To ensure that further advances and changes are made, we will continue to support the work of GamStop."
GamStop was formed by the Remote Gambling Association (RGA), which designed it to allow all interested customers to block access to all branded iGaming sites that have registered with this framework. The idea of the UKGC is to make GamStop mandatory for all licensees in Great Britain to move forward.
The official RGA stance is that if this proposal came to fruition, it wouldn't mind.
The RGA spokesperson has already confirmed that GamStop is completely sponsored by the Remote Gambling Association and its members and that this innovative social responsibility support tool is supporting more than 200,000 individuals who have so far excluded themselves.
The spokesperson says, "We will indeed encourage the involvement of being enrolled with GAMSTOP as a circumstance of license. In tackling problem gambling, self-exclusion is an effective method, and the industry has been very supportive of this system. To fix the issue of gambling, we will continuously innovate and expand self-exclusion and other schemes."
Attentive Look at Stake Limits
The Gambling Commission of the United Kingdom (UKGC) is debating whether to place restrictions on the amount users can bet online or not.
Neil McArthur, chief executive of the UK's betting regulator, informed a parliamentary committee back in February 2020 that he would guarantee that caps on online stakes would be taken into account.
It is expected that the decision will be taken by the end of August, but it is not yet clear if the current atmosphere will delay the decision until or after the end of the year.
Members of Parliament argued for a £2 betting limit per bet on an online slot game in November. In high street betting shops, the existing cap on land-based machines throughout the nation is also £2.
A way for MPs to tackle the public health problem of gambling addictions in the UK is the idea behind this cap. According to the Gambling Commission, between October 2018-September 2019, £ 14.3 billion was spent on gambling in Great Britain. In the last year, there was a marginal decline from the industry's high of £14.4 billion for the period from April 2017 to March 2018, compared to £14.3 billion between April 2018 and March 2019.
Betting shop rules restrict customers to a limit of £2 per spin on slot machines, so MPs want this to be mirrored online as well, where games are more available. This cap was £100 per spin prior to April 2019.
Enhanced Verification Practices
The UK gambling regulator briefed local gamblers earlier in May 2020 and gave them more specific details about ID authentication significance when setting up an account with an online gambling provider. Three key theories will require online gambling businesses to verify the identity of their customers.
In the event that a UK citizen wishes to open an account with an online gambling provider, under the rules of the current gambling legislation, the company is required to verify if the person is old enough to gamble. Until such a check takes place, clients will not be able to deposit money or run any free-to-play games. A customer's inability to verify their age will prevent them from opening an account successfully.