Self-exclusion Standards project opens consultation seeking broader industry input

Online casino resource Casino Guru has announced the commencement of the third stage of the Self-exclusion Standards project. The project aims to enhance player protection by establishing best practices for online gambling self-exclusion and, following extensive research and collaboration with international stakeholders, Casino Guru is now seeking broader industry input to refine their draft recommendations.

The Self-exclusion Standards initiative is led by Dr Margaret Carran, Associate Professor in Law and Associate Dean (Education) at the City Law School of City, University of London and sponsored by Casino Guru.

The project aims to identify the best practice in online gambling self-exclusion to help maximize the level of player protection and to help build a robust process of self-exclusion to enable such schemes to truly become an effective barrier between players who struggle with controlling their gambling habits and online gambling in general.

To arrive at a solution, the Self-exclusion Standards project embarked on a comprehensive journey that fostered cooperation with international stakeholders to create a set of online self-exclusion recommendations that will be available for adoption across different jurisdictions, said Casino Guru.

Previous stages included comprehensive research of existing evidence and a series of meetings with 10 international stakeholders with diverse expertise and experience with online self-exclusion. To this end, the Self-exclusion Standards project is now entering its final stage, where it will explicitly seek broader consultations with online gambling stakeholders.

Dr. Carran said of the final stage of the project: “Our draft set of recommendations is based on extensive deliberations of international experts and we believe that it presents the most optimal online self-exclusion code of practice for operators.

"We now need external feedback to drive inclusion, to gain broader input from all interested stakeholders, including international regulators and the industry to ensure that our final recommendations  could indeed be adopted globally for the benefit of players and the industry alike.”

Ultimately, the project will culminate in a comprehensive paper consisting of the final Code for Online Self-Exclusion Practice that will be publicly available so it can serve as a reference point for the industry and other interested parties. The paper will assist in driving further research in this field.

Casino Guru also says that the final code will also serve as "a stepping-stone" for broader discussion about self-exclusion processes, and how existing practices can be re-examined and reinvented.

This final stage seeks broader collaboration specifically to obtain valuable and actionable feedback that can be leveraged to provide quality conclusions that help establish a robust set of recommendations, and that are based on the broader knowledge of the industry.

Consultation is open from now through to September 10, 2024. Preliminary findings will be presented at the EASG Conference 2024 and the final code is due to be ready in January 2025.

Šimon Vincze, Casino Guru's Sustainable and Safer Gambling Lead, noted: “We want to engage the broader industry to increase the impact and benefits of the project. A lot of good work stays on paper or in journals without usage in the real world. We want to change it by actively engaging with the industry."

Interested parties can find out more about the Self-exclusion Standards project and respond to the consultation here, or head to the website to learn more about the broader Global Self-Exclusion Initiative.