The European Union have reached an agreement on the regulation of online gambling, but could Australia be the next country to follow suit?
August 7, 2014. Officials representing the European Commission have recently made new recommendations for online gambling service providers.
In a bid to ensure better consumer protection, the Commission have asked that online gambling website hosts work to improve their customer age checks, monitor their advertising outreach and prevent the potential for customers to become addicted to gambling.
The recommendations became public in mid July after the Commission expressed their concerns about the nature of today’s online gambling sites. Specifically, they have advised that online gambling hosts apply more stringent checks to ensure that any new user signing up is of the legal gambling age in the hosting country.
Moreover, officials have advised that advertising the practice should be curtailed and should not promote gambling in too positive a light – namely, messages which encourage the listener to gamble with promises of favourable odds, or insinuations that gambling can help consumers to overcome financial difficulty.
Online gambling addiction is becoming a concern.
Finally, the Commission have recommended that online gambling sites offer players more ways to seek help should they find themselves addicted to gambling, via the provision of helpline telephone numbers on the hosting websites. Another way in which website hosts were encouraged to help was to ensure that their staff members interacted with players, keeping records of how much they were betting and notifying the consumer if they had spent too much.
“Regretfully not a fully legislative act”
Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of the European Betting Association, said of the recommendations: “Yes, we indeed believe that the European level is the appropriate level to regulate the online gambling sector as it is an inherently cross-border sector.
“Although the recommendation on consumer protection published by the European Commission is regretfully not a fully legislatively act, we consider it an important next step in the right direction.”
Despite the concerns, many online gambling companies have already implemented many of the strategies set out by the Commission – Online Casino Tropez, part of the Playtech Group, for example, provides clear links to organisations which seek to help those with gambling addictions, such as Gamble Aware and offers its players to set up an account with limited amount of deposits to be done.
With the European Union setting the example, many other countries could soon follow suit, including Australia. In December 2013, the Coalition Federal Government introduced the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill, whose goals, amongst others, were to address ‘problem gambling.’
The bill states that new changes in Australian gambling law will be a “different approach to addressing problem gambling, reducing bureaucracy and the duplication of functions between the Australian Government and State and Territory Governments.”
Amendments have now been made to the National Gambling Regulator Act 2012, which include a change in daily ATM withdrawals to $250.
Clearly, problem gambling is as much of a concern for Australia as it is for Europe, and we could soon see more amendments to the NGR Act 2012 to reflect the worries of the European Commission.
In a multi-billion dollar industry, the effect of online gambling is sweeping the nation, and Australia would be wise to follow its Commonwealth counterparts to ensure the safety of today’s consumers.
