New Self-Exclusion Standards Project to help set global benchmark for player protection

Šimon Vincze, Head of Sustainable and Safer Gambling at Casino Guru, and Dr Margaret Carran, Assistant VP for Education Partnerships, City St George’s, University of London, have presented the Self-Exclusion Standards Project, a project focused on creating standardized and clear guidelines for how online self-exclusion programs should work across different jurisdictions, while paying particular attention to Africa.

Speaking at the 32nd General Assembly of the African Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO) held in Kenya on August 24 - August 28 and hosted in partnership with the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS), Vincze and Dr Carran presented their blueprint for creating strong self-exclusion guidelines that can be adopted across state borders to help protect consumers from harm.

"We focused on every aspect of the self-exclusion process and its implementation at operators to ensure that players are well-informed, able to find the right tool and use it at times when they are losing control. At the same time, we have sought to equip operators with appropriate procedures and safeguards to make sure they protect those who need it effectively," Vincze said.

The result of extensive research, the Self-Exclusion Standards Project outlines a three-stage evidence-based approach derived from research, workgroup consultation, and broader public consultation in order to deliver a gold standard that can be adopted across jurisdictions.

"Creating international standards for safer gambling tools and principles would bring enormous benefits to all stakeholders. The regulators and policy makers would have a reliable, evidence-based and robust source of what offers genuine protection; enforcement would become easier; players would benefit from a consistently high level of protection regardless of where they choose to gamble, and the public would gain confidence that the governments are indeed serious about protecting players from gambling-related harms," Dr Carran commented.

The framework is designed with the idea of being easy to integrate across state borders and can have an immediate impact on player well-being and consumer protection standards.

To ensure the impact of the Self-Exclusion Standard Project, the initiative's authors have vowed to support jurisdictions attempting to implement the framework to protect consumers and improve consumer safeguards locally.

Image credit: ARSO: African Organisation for Standardisation