How we make gambling safer

Over the past two years we have made gambling safer for consumers in Great Britain through:

• Being tough on compliance and enforcement - Increasing our focused and relentless programme of ensuring gambling businesses prioritise consumer safety, keeping to the rules, and taking firm action when they don’t.
• Safer marketing and advertising - Introducing new rules around advertising – meaning that any gambling operators breaching consumer laws now face tougher action through financial penalties, suspensions and settlements.
• Banning gambling with credit cards - Banning gambling on credit cards to keep people safer when gambling online by not allowing them to gamble with money they do not have.
• Protecting young people - Introducing stronger age and identity verification checks for online gambling businesses to keep people safe from gambling harm.
• Improving how operators interact with their customers - Making much-needed improvements to customer interaction guidance for gambling businesses which ensure they step in and ask the right questions at the right time. A consultation will follow on this area in autumn 2020.
• Making those at risk safer online - Requiring all gambling businesses to sign up to the online self-exclusion scheme, GAMSTOP, which gives consumers an opportunity to exclude themselves from all online gambling for a period of at least six months.
• Providing additional online gambling protection during lockdown - Bringing in tighter measures to protect consumers who were gambling online during the Covid-19 lockdown – including preventing reverse withdrawals, not offering bonuses to customers who are displaying signs of harm, and improving online customer interaction.
• Launching the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms - Successfully launching the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms across England, Scotland and Wales. The Strategy is driving and coordinating work to bring a lasting impact on reducing gambling harms.
• Introducing consistent alternative dispute resolution - Requiring all gambling businesses to use only alternative dispute resolution providers who meet our tough, additional standards.
• Involving experts by experience in our work – Involving people who have experienced gambling harm and can therefore help to better inform and shape our work.
• Protecting consumers by opening consultations on VIP schemes and making games safer – Working with industry to introduce new rules around so-called VIP schemes. The outcome of a current consultation will provide us with further regulatory options, as will a consultation on the design of games to make them less addictive.
• Protecting people on social media - Working with Twitter to create and issue specific guidance to help consumers limit the amount of gambling-related content they see.

Read our ‘Day in the Life’ feature to find out more about the people working at the Gambling Commission, and how they and their teams are working to make gambling safer.