Legislation
UK – Gambling Commission publishes new report on children and gambling trends
By Phil - 21 November 2018
The Gambling Commission has said stronger partnerships are needed to protect children following a new report published.
The gambling regulator has called for regulators and businesses across industries to work together, but the research also shows the important influence parents can have on children’s gambling behaviour.
The report shows that close to a million youngsters have been exposed to gambling through ‘loot boxes’ in computer games or on smartphone apps, and claims the number of problem gamblers aged 11 to 16 has reached 55,000.
This year’s Young People and Gambling report reveals that gambling participation by 11 to 16 year olds has increased in the last 12 months but remains lower compared to all previous years. However, the research indicated that more children are at risk of being harmed by gambling.
The report identifies the most common gambling activities that children are engaging in are often outside of the Gambling Commission’s direct regulatory control – such as bets between friends, lottery scratch cards purchased by parents and playing of fruit machines in pubs. It highlights the need for a more collaborative proactive approach to protect young people.
Despite the increase in problem gambling rates the report found that only 19% of children said their parents had set strict rules about gambling.
Tim Miller, Executive Director at the Gambling Commission, said: “Protecting children from the harms that can come from gambling remains one of our highest priorities. In the areas we have regulatory control, we continue to strengthen the protections in place to prevent underage gambling, such as our recent proposals for enhanced age verifications checks for online gambling.”
“But regulation alone cannot address all of the risks that young people may face from gambling. Our latest research shows that the most common forms of gambling by children do not happen in gambling premises. Some of these are legal, such as bets between friends; some of these are unlawful, such as gambling on machines in pubs. But all of them present risks to young people as there is no form of gambling that is risk-free. It is therefore vital that all those with a part to play in protecting children and young people – parents, businesses and regulators – work together.”
Last week, the Commission called on the pubs industry to take urgent action following serious failures to stop children playing on 18+ gaming machines. In addition, in September 17 global gambling regulators teamed up with the Commission to work together to address the risks created by the blurring of lines between video games, social gaming and gambling. The Commission is also currently consulting on strengthening age verification processes.
The study showed that 14 per cent of 11-16 year olds had spent their own money on gambling in the past week, this is up from 12 per cent in 2017 but still lower than rates seen prior to 2017.
The principal forms of gambling in the past week are placing a private bet for money with friends, National Lottery scratchcards, fruit/slot machines and playing cards for money with friends.
Lottoland has already launched its P.A.R.E.N.T scheme is being introduced to support parents, educators and youth representatives across the board in mitigating the risks posed to young people gaming online.
Nigel Birrell, CEO at Lottoland, said: “Lottoland already felt strongly that we could and should be doing more in the countries we operate in, even before this report, and its publication coinciding with the launch of our own partnership initiative supporting all those touched by the issues involved has given us more impetus than ever to push forward with our plans.”
Dean Nicolls, Head of Global Marketing, Jumio who supplies AI identity verification, described the Commission’s findings as ‘shocking.’
“Studies suggest that taking part in gambling activities at an early age may lead to more addictive gambling activities during adulthood, making this even more concerning,” he said. We do not believe that prohibition will stop children from accessing gambling sites. But we, and many others, in the gaming industry believe that building in some level of regulation and verification are important ways to help prevent and curb underage gambling.
The optimal approach for gaming and gambling operators is to first require online identity verification checks before any online account is established. This type of online identity verification is typically performed by requiring a government-issued ID. But this isn’t enough,” he added.
“Unfortunately, government-issued IDs can be purchased on the Dark Web or stolen outright so ID verification, by itself, is no longer sufficient. Operators need to ensure that the person behind the account is the actual owner of that ID. More and more operators are now requiring the player to take a selfie using their smartphone. The image on the selfie is then compared to the picture on the ID document to ensure that the person creating the online account is whom they claim to be — creating a near watertight means of barring underage players (and fraudsters) from unauthorised gambling.
Taking these extra steps is absolutely vital in helping operators establish the genuine identity of their users, and ultimately, play a role in tackling the epidemic of underage gambling.”
Caption: Tim Miller
