4. Being proactive and addressing issues at the earliest opportunity
It is in the best interests of consumers and the public, as well as the industry itself, to secure the compliance of a licensee at the earliest opportunity. Over this strategy period we want to achieve that objective through more proactive activities and interventions with licensees rather than through reactive compliance and enforcement activity. We are clear this shift is only possible where licensees are making best endeavours to operate within the rules and with due regard for consumers and the public. Where they are not, we will continue to take decisive and escalating enforcement action.
Key Commitments
We will invest in a programme of activities exploring how licensees can be supported to meet their responsibilities to consumers and the wider public.
Why? Responsibility for complying with our regulations sits with the licensee. However, it is important that we use our expertise, influence and convening powers to assist licensees to meet their responsibilities towards consumers. By investing in engagement activities and events where we can communicate clearly with stakeholders and help identify and address shared risks or opportunities, we can raise collective standards of conduct and competence in the gambling industry and in turn raise confidence in gambling regulation.
As a result, licensees will have access to clear information and guidance. Licensees will be able to raise and be informed about emerging risks, opportunities or common issues to address within their businesses. The work will build on the existing engagement between us and licensees.
Consumers and the wider public will benefit from licensees complying at the earliest opportunity reducing the risk of harm, unfair outcomes or crime. Where it is appropriate licensees will be nudged into addressing issues which are impacting consumers promptly. The focus of our enforcement work will increasingly fall on persistent, serious and wilful non-compliance.
We will measure our progress through the number of licensees demonstrating clear understanding of standards and increased compliance rates. Reliance on formal enforcement tools to secure compliance will be reduced and be more focused on those who fail to comply.
We will increase the resource available to improve our understanding of issues which pose a risk to the fair and open licensing objective.
Why? Over the past few strategies, we have rightly focused a considerable amount of resource on addressing issues related to gambling-related harm and crime prevention. Having made significant strides in these areas, and without losing our focus on them, this new strategy presents an opportunity to invest further resource into identifying risks and opportunities relating to the fair and open licensing objective, and to the regulatory outcomes that link to this objective. Understanding consumer concerns, improving information to players and ensuring the fairness of gambling products are all key elements in improving consumer outcomes and consumer confidence from the low levels of trust currently reported.
As a result, by improving our understanding of what is important to consumers in this area, we will be better able to target our resources and, where necessary, any future regulatory activity. We will also be able to support the gambling industry to better understand where consumer interests lie.
Consumers and the wider public will benefit from regulatory interventions targeted at those issues which pose the greatest risk to the fairness and openness of gambling in Great Britain. Consumers will see positive changes in how licensees treat them throughout the different stages of their customer relationship.
We will measure our progress by identifying and reporting on key metrics such as consumer sentiment on whether gambling is fair and can be trusted, complaints about gambling, and licensee compliance with fair and open requirements. We will also use project or issue specific data or consumer research to determine the impact an intervention has had and whether it has addressed the identified concern.
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5. Regulating a successful National Lottery
Last updated: 8 April 2024
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