UKGC report says operators must be engage on player safety

• The UKGC notes that operators can do more to protect consumers from gambling-related harm
• There is a commitment to administrative punctuality that often overrides whether players actually access important information and understand it
• The report differentiates between new and veteran players, complex gambling concepts, and the need for constant intervention that doesn’t backfire and create mistrust in the process

A new report by the UK Gambling Commission has looked further into whether consumers feel protected and most importantly "informed" about decisions they make when gambling at a regulated entity in the United Kingdom.

UKGC highlights issues with how information is presented to players

The report, conducted bythe Behavioural Insights Team and part of the UKGC’s Consumer Voice Program, has sought to establish gaps between intended consumer protection measures and their actual implementation and effect.

The report was put together as a rapid desk review of 53 sources, 3 deliberative focus groups, and 4 in-depth interviews with higher-risk players as outlined in the regulator’s official publication.

According to the report, consumers consistently brought up the same concern, and that is that while there is technical information about how to play responsibly, it was hard to find and interpret these measures and take advantage of them.

This information could also be difficult to parse when a consumer is gambling, as it is buried underneath the main focus which is the gameplay.

Another issue outlined is the fact that all users are approached in exactly the same way, while there should probably be a distinction between beginner and experienced players.

For example, operators should probably be doing more to explain complex terms, such as odds, ot newer players, and help them understand how probability and fixed-odds, such as Random Number Generator (RNG) games, work.

Operators need to step up and be proactive in protecting consumers

Another drawback of the current consumer protection framework is that the focus is on companies to be administratively transparent rather than seek to actively protect at-risk players.

The report notes that tailored interventions are probably the best way to go, with generic warnings deemed far less efficient, but there is an interesting drawback to this - as interventions happen, consumers begin to doubt the good intentions of an operator.

The report, however, is confident that to strengthen consumer safeguards, operators need to be much more focused on providing persistent support for their players and try to steer them clear of harm and be proactive in shielding consumers, especially those identified as higher-risk players.

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