UK Gambling Commission opens consultation on VIP customers

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) opened a consultation in order to receive views on proposed changes to the rules operators must abide by when transacting with high value customers.

The consultation follows collaborative work with the industry following three challenges laid down by the UKGC to make gambling safer and reduce harm across the sector. The regulators challenged the industry to make faster progress in raising standards in relation to VIP incentives, responsible product and game design, and online advertising.

On Friday, the UKGC also published a report into the progress made by the industry in those areas and the Commission’s next steps in relation to this work. The report also features input and challenge from a newly announced interim Experts by Experience Group. The proposed changes to the Licence Codes and Conditions of Practice (LCCP) are aimed at focusing operators’ attention on making gambling fairer, safer and crime free when transacting with high value customers.

UKGC said the management and incentivization of high value customers poses two key regulatory challenges. First, they are more heavily engaged gamblers in terms of their gambling spend, the frequency with which they gamble, or both, and heavily engaged gamblers are at greater risk of gambling-related harm. The other challenge is that the disproportionate financial value of these customers to licensees means regulatory compliance can conflict with short-term commercial objectives.

“We are concerned that these regulatory challenges have not been consistently met by licensees. This has resulted in repeated instances of gambling-related harm and in some cases, failure to prevent criminal proceeds being spent on gambling,” regulators say in an overview of the consultation. “Evidence from our compliance and enforcement work and the feedback we have collected from consumers suggests that existing regulatory requirements that cover all customers are not being tailored and applied effectively to HVCs.”