GB self-exclusion plans "poorly thought through"
Operators pick holes in universal self-exclusion plans as National Lottery operator Camelot says it is "following the debate"
Plans to implement a universal self-exclusion scheme for Great Britain-facing remote gambling operators have come under fire from leading operators with one executive saying they lack clarity and have been “poorly thought through”.
Great Britain’s Gambling Commission published plans to update its licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP) yesterday, introducing a raft of new social responsibility measures after concluding the industry could do “much more” to make gambling safe.
However the implementation of a universal self-exclusion scheme by 2017 has proved to be highly contentious with one egaming executive telling eGaming Review that the idea was “well-intentioned but poorly thought through”.
“The ramifications are that the very people they are trying to protect will end up playing with unlicensed operators [and] the fate of these players is then out of the control of anyone responsible,” the executive said.
“[It’s] not very smart and a further sign that the GC wishes to run operators businesses as it thinks it knows best or the operators cannot be trusted.”
And it emerged several other operators have already queried the scope and implementation of self-exclusion as proposed by the regulator, in responses to the consultation published yesterday by the regulator.
Rank Group queried the “inconsistency” of the proposals to offer universal self-exclusion as well as product-selective exclusion and said the Commission’s plans for short breaks from play conflicted with a self-exclusion period.
“It is wrong to assume that all exclusions are people with serious gambling problems, or that it is reserved as the nuclear option,” the response said.
The Gambling Commission did however allay fears that a product-by-product self-exclusion scheme could be implemented after doubts over its effectiveness were raised by Gala Coral.
Gala Coral said that “introducing a product-by-product element to self-exclusion may have the effect of undermining the principle and understanding of self-exclusion.”
The Commission has removed product-by-product self-exclusion from its current plans, stating that it would “not to introduce an ordinary code on exclusion by product at this point”.
A number of operators also questioned the effectiveness of a universal self-exclusion scheme that did not include participation from all gambling companies licensed in Britain, including the National Lottery and all other social lotteries.
Speaking to eGR this morning a spokesperson for Camelot confirmed that its own practices already included temporary and permanent self-exclusion systems, but that it was open to discuss the possibility of it collaborating with other GB-facing operators.
“We are always looking at potential ways to further strengthen player protection and are closely following the debate around multiple operator self-exclusion,” the spokesperson added.