Oh dear. Looks like the UKGC are getting stricter and stricter. The UK’s utmost gambling authority have decided to ride the rising wave of licensing boards reinforcing their standards among the online gambling world.
This means that they are now more than ever scrutinising all mobile casinos across the net (mostly new ones) to see if said mobile casinos meet their high standards. Is this an entirely unnecessary measure that will seriously limit what mobile casinos can do or are they an absolutely essential upgrade to their already tight legislation?
Safety Measures And Commissions
The UK Gambling Commission are well known to many online gamblers. Not only are they pretty much the gambling police who sort out disputes that could arise among mobile casinos and their players, they distribute licenses to these mobile casinos in the form of ‘commissions’ to make sure they are safe places to gamble your money.
Many of the UKGC methods of maintaining safety regulations intact among the countless mobile casinos online are incredibly strict and assist to keep issues such as money-laundering and gambling addiction to a minimum. Basically, it’s thanks to them that you can traverse all these mobile casinos without the threat of your money being taken away unfairly.
The commissions are carried in the form of investigations and they examine different aspects of a hopeful mobile casino’s aspects to make sure they abide by the guidelines. They check things like social responsibility, banking methods, etc. So you know that they’re pretty thorough. Not thorough enough though, according to them.
The UKGC and now introducing and encouraging mobile casinos two new practices to make them more respectable, that being the ‘self-exclusion’ practice and ‘time-out’ practice. These entail the act of excluding problematic players from the act out gambling for a set period of time.
The self-exclusion one is pretty self-explanatory in this regard — a player chooses to exclude themselves from betting if they believe it will be better for them. The time-out one is the mobile casinos enforcing the exclusion (and minimum period of six months) onto the player if they feel its necessary.
Why Are These Measurements In Place?
The reason these measurements are in place isn’t entirely clear. However, we can infer that they have been implemented to tackle problem gambling. They may seem harsh at first but when you look at them more closely, you can see that the UKGC is giving players’ a choice.
If they choose the ‘self-exclusion’ option, their exclusion is likely to be far less than it otherwise would have been if they refused to cooperate and the mobile casino would have to enforce a ‘time-out’ ban. By placing the decision in the hand of the player, they are given more control over the solution to their problem gambling which is a positive thing for addicts.
Is This Really Necessary?
Some players may criticise these practices as being a little overzealous. There are many problem gambling measurements already in place to help tackle the issue of addiction and it seems to be working pretty well. Problem gambling on the whole in the UK is extremely low and some may think that it’s odd that the UKGC feel the need to up the anti with their regulations.
Mobile casinos are very rarely as corrupt or problematic as they’re made out to be in the public eye. But some may say that problem gambling should be stomped out entirely and that this might be what it takes to let it happen. Though, we don’t believe that problem gambling (or addiction in general) will be rid of entirely.
But this isn’t a recent thing. The whole idea behind this practice that’s been gaining ground as early as May 2015. It occurred when a clause in the UKGC’s Licence Conditions and Codes and Practice enforced the idea about deterring mobile casinos that would mislead players through promotions.
This means that all companies must be absolutely transparent in what they mean by ‘free bet’ and/or ‘bonus’ and what conditions apply to said offers. Mobile casinos that do not abide by these guidelines can expect to be pummeled by bad publicity and a lot of hefty fines. So it’s within their best interest to comply with these rules. But they should anyway because, you know, it’s ethical and responsible.
