Responsible Gambling Reports

One of the hottest topics for debate in the internet gambling industry today is responsible gambling. Law makers not in favour of it have used it as a deterrent to hinder the regulation and expansion of it in various jurisdictions.

Many operators claim that part of their gambling arm they have a responsible gambling section in place on their websites; however this notion has been frowned upon of late. Since many opposed to internet gambling regard this as lip service and no more. The European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) issued a report on new self-regulatory measures that will set the trend within the casino industry in future. EGBA is a trade organization which represents major European internet casinos.

Measures outlined within the report will be publicized by the European Committee for consistency (CEN) soon. John Ketchell, Innovation Director at CEN, states in the report that the responsible internet gambling measures contemplated by CEN will safeguard consumers and make sure that internet casinos act responsibly. The practices has your problem gambler in mind and it aims to offer them more protection, deterrence of minors gambling, safeguard a clients privacy, dedication to moral and responsible marketing, ensure perpetual customer satisfaction and support, ensure a safe and secure IT environment and a no tolerance policy for fraudulent and criminal behaviour.

To enforce new industry standards takes time. The “Responsible Remote Gambling Measures” programme of CEN kicked off in May 2010 with 25 registered participating members. In total 600 suggestions were put forward by the participants, based on the proposals suggested a responsible gambling draft was drawn up. Soon the document was publicized by CEN and comments were welcomed between July and September 2010. The CEN participants recently accepted the final document and will be published this month. Ketchell pointed out, “This is just the first stage, in the sense that the CEN community and its stakeholders are keen to work towards the creation of a full European Standard in due course.”

In the UK the third British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) will be released soon. It’s a statistical study on British internet gambling behaviour, outlining the occurrence of problem gambling in the country; it also champions the implementation of various policies suggested in the survey. In 2000 and 2007 the first reports were released.

The National Centre for Social Research conducted the survey, under the direction of gambling experts Dr Rachel Volberg, Professors Mark Griffiths and Jim Orford. The fieldwork was concluded in 2010 and more than 7,500 respondents were interviewed. The report will be available on Tuesday the 15^th of February 2011. The report includes the frequency of participation in all formats of gambling, predicting the commonness of problem gambling and examine factors that encourage people to gamble.