The Gambling Commission launched the first phase of its financial risk checks pilot last August as one of the recommendations from the UK’s gambling review white paper. The measure, which triggers additional checks for players whose net monthly deposit hits £500, was met with resistance when first proposed in May.
When this deposit limit was hit operators could trigger checks with credit reference agencies. Then a second phase would be triggered in February 2025 which will lower the net deposit to a threshold of £150. The pilot has been implemented across a few of the UK’s top tier operators only.
Public feedback to a consultation for the policy in 2023 showed concerns around it generating additional levels of friction for players. It also raised privacy concerns in response to proposals for the sharing of player data across operators.
Operators also flagged the cost impact additional checks would have on them.
However, yesterday (10 February) the Gambling Commission published an update on the pilot, in which director of major policy projects and evaluation Helen Rhodes said approximately 95% of the 530,000 checks had undergone “frictionless assessments” by credit reference agencies.
Roughly 5% of the assessments were deemed to not have been matched or that the operator data was “invalid”.
Of that 5%, data formatting issues accounted for less than 1% of assessments, where invalid dates or duplications were supplied by operators.
“Just over 4% of the assessments were unmatched, where the credit reference agency was unable to identify the customer and no information was available,” Rhodes wrote.
The update states that the first stage of the trial had been completed and data shared by operators was “successfully” matched by credit agencies. Roughly 300,000 accounts had been marked as high-spending gamblers.
Comparisons should “not be made”
In the blog, Rhodes pointed out that the findings only cover stage one of the test made in the 2023 white paper.
In that report it was predicted that 3% of customers would undergo checks and of this portion 80% were expected to receive a “frictionless” assessment.
“While direct comparisons cannot yet be made, the proportions for stage one of the pilot outperformed this assumption,” Rhodes wrote.
Gambling Commission calls for “commonality”
The pilot is being carried out over three stages and is expected to end in April 2025. The first stage of the trial tested what proportion of high-spending gamblers could get a “frictionless” financial risk assessment if they were introduced.
This means the pilot was testing what happens when an account meets the high-spend threshold and financial risk indicators are triggered. As a result, it replicated the data that operators would be getting if it were an automated or live implementation of these checks.
This first step of the process has been described as a pilot of the pilot by the Commission. Following stages will test “more recent data” it said.
In its recommendations for the future of the scheme, the Gambling Commission has suggested operators set common definitions for what is considered “permitted” data, such as time periods of play, to “ensure” there is “commonality” across the scheme. This is aimed at reducing “variations” that some pilot participants found “difficult” to interpret.
Not affordability checks
The Commission has stressed that this is not another way of saying “affordability checks”. Rather, it is a proposed method that would “identify high-spending remote gambling customers” experiencing financial difficulties, so they can receive help.
“We do not have any requirements for affordability checks and are not proposing any,” Rhodes, concluded.
Original article: https://igamingbusiness.com/gaming/gaming-regulation/gambling-commission-reports-95-success-rate-in-frictionless-financial-risks-check-pilot/
