Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes has attempted to dispel key “myths” and a “very high level of misunderstanding” he has observed around the UK white paper’s plans for affordability and financial risk checks.
Financial checks have proved a hot topic of the early stages of the white paper and have been the standout consultation from the first tranche launched this summer.
Rhodes said the Gambling Commission has received over 1,500 responses on its plans, but he has now released an explanatory video and blog post to tackle some of the issues that have been emerged from the subsequent discussion.
He said the “misinformation” covers suggestions that “large numbers of people” will be affected by the checks, that personal credit scores will be affected and that the checks will take place in land-based settings such as betting shops or at racecourses.
Frictionless assessments
Rhodes reiterated that the proposals for risk checks only relate to online gambling and that credit scores would remain “unaffected.” On the number of accounts affected, he said that while proposed “light touch” financial vulnerability checks would be carried out on around 20 percent of accounts, “most of those checked will not be impacted unless serious concerns are raised” and an operator intervenes.
“If a check shows no risk flags, there is no need for a customer to be inconvenienced at all and the process can be entirely automated,” Rhodes added.
As for less subtle and more invasive financial risk checks, these will target “only the very highest spending customers where the impacts of any harm may be most severe,” Rhodes said, claiming those checks would amount to three per cent of accounts.
Of those, the Gambling Commission estimates that “at most just 0.3 percent of account holders would ever be asked to directly provide the additional financial information that operators are already requiring of some consumers.”
Gambling Commission proposals
The proposals for light touch affordability checks are that the checks are conducted at £125 net loss within a 30-day rolling period or £500 net loss within a rolling 365-day period.
Financial risk checks, it is proposed, would come into effect if losses exceed £1,000 within a rolling 24-hour period or £2,000 within 90 days. Triggers for enhanced assessments could be lower for bettors aged 18-24 under the consultation’s plans.
Rhodes concluded: “The aim of these proposals is to provide a more frictionless system benefiting consumers as they would not need to manually provide data and the data provided would be minimised and protected against misuse.
“The proposals would also benefit operators in having a clear understanding of requirements and allowing a frictionless system which is not currently available.”
