The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) continues to look for ways to curb problem gambling and offer better protection to UK players.
The gambling regulator carried out a public consultation process on affordability checks which came to an end a few days ago.
The UKGC confirmed that it had received a very good response from its public consultation survey which resulted in over 13,000 individuals sending in detailed information to help the gambling watchdog. The UKGC has now finished its public consultation process and will carry out a detailed analysis of all the feedback.
The strong feedback suggests that Brits are keen on having affordability checks imposed before a player gets access to gambling related services. There are currently Know Your Customer (KYC) processes in place for Brits to identify themselves to iGaming operators but there are not strict affordability checks in place.
By imposing affordability checks, players will be better protected as the casino will know how much a player can afford to spend or if they can afford to spend anything at all. The process will be tedious for both casino operators and players as a lot of personal and confidential data must be shared for affordability checks to be put in place.
The UKGC will also be in a better position to pull up casino operators who fail to carry out proper affordability checks and operators who deliberately allow players to go overboard. However, we will have to wait for an official confirmation from the UKGC to see what they final decision on the matter is and what process they will follow to roll out these affordability checks.
Affordability Checks Can Destroy Gambling Industry
A number of industry trade groups and gambling operators have called on the UKGC to not be hasty when it comes to deciding and implementing affordability checks. The UKGC had earlier estimated that affordability checks could cost the UK gambling industry a combined $80 million in losses per year.
However, multiple gambling experts estimate that this number will be quite higher with some pegging the losses to surpass $100 million. Laurence Robertson, who is an MP with the Conservative Party said that they entire process must be carefully considered as affordability checks if not done right had the potential to cripple the UK gambling industry, put many of the small operators out of business and increase illegal gambling.
