How affiliates are using self-exclusion schemes to market unlicensed gambling sites

Back in September, a member on the casino forum site Casinomeister highlighted a website that they had found which was using the term “non-Gamstop” to promote casinos accepting UK residents that were not checking the UKGC’s self-exclusion database, Gamstop. It’s hard to believe in this day and age that people are both prepared to stoop that low and also that they can be so blind as to the ammunition that they are providing the industry’s detractors with but unfortunately it would seem they are still out there.

Duncan Garvie who runs ThePogg website, which also hosts an “Alternative Dispute Resolution” (ADR) service for players, took up the issue and did some further research which revealed a number of sites using a variety of terms to target self-excluded players. It was initially assumed that this was emanating from the UK as the sites had a UK focus but attention soon switched to Sweden when it was understood that at least one of the offending sites had been sold some time back – with no evidence of this content existing – to a Swedish-based affiliate.

When Duncan contacted me to chat about the extent of it, we set up some checks during our own scans and found the problem extended beyond affiliate sites and into Pay Per Click advertising as well. As the issue got more publicity and the UK-licensed casinos became aware of it, they managed to get on top of the problem fairly quickly and a recent review of the pages that were initially identified as promoting casinos to self-excluded players now reveals that the casinos seem to be those that are unlicensed in the UK. For now, at least.

The data coming in from our PPC scanning also reveals a tidy-up with more licensed casinos clearly taking action, but the bottom line is that the affiliate(s) in question, although reportedly contacted and asked to remove the pages, have not done so and while those sites exist, they remain a serious problem.

Furthermore, the removal of licensed casinos has led to the introduction of unlicensed casinos onto those pages which logic suggests (although I am unable to confirm categorically) are there because they will take UK players and ignore the Gamstop database checks required of a UK-licensed casino. This highlights one of the points raised recently at the KnowNow conference in London during Responsible Gambling Week: that overly strict regulation may actually be counter-productive in encouraging the exposure to unlicensed casinos and consequently offering less, not more, protection to vulnerable players.

Next steps

In the meantime, what does the industry do about affiliates based outside the UK, representing unlicensed operators to players in regulated territories? The UKGC doesn’t necessarily have the resources to license affiliates and marketing agencies and, even if they did, these types of ‘agent’ would not be covered. The New Jersey DGE has a rule that states that licensed casinos cannot appear on sites representing “illegal” operators but again, this would have a limited effect in this scenario.

When the bigger operators apply pressure to affiliates and essentially ostracise them, we’ve seen before that this can have a really good effect. Education is obviously one route to take but not everyone is a fast or even a willing learner. The only real answer in my opinion is to ensure that players in the UK don’t need to go to unlicensed operators and that is not an easy task: regulation that balances the protection of vulnerable groups with the needs of savvy gamblers is going to meet with a lot of pressure from agenda-driven politicians and journalists or players with a gripe, which puts the regulators in a no-win situation.

Ian Sims is the founder of Rightlander, a state-of-the-art affiliate compliance platform that allows affiliates and operators to identify potentially non-compliant content in regulated jurisdictions. Prior to establishing Rightlander, Sims was an egaming affiliate for 13 years.