As one of the most regulated online gambling spaces in the world, it’s no surprise that the UK gambling market goes through big changes on a regular basis – because of this, many operators have taken to registering in locations outside of the UK to avoid potential changes and deliver an more consumer focussed experience with a growing number of EU Casinos accepting the growing number of UK players here, this is particularly true with gambling hotspots like Malta as the more relaxed gambling laws certainly do favour the consumer. By moving away from UK based services, however, it doesn’t guarantee that these changes won’t impact other online operators, as some of these changes may look to spread.
The first big set of changes to hit the UK gambling market will be put in place by October of this year, and mostly targeted towards online slots, as they have the lowest winning percentage of all casino games online, they are an easy target for the commission, and by slowing down how slots operate the hope is that it will minimise losses for those players most at risk. These same changes also look to tackle features that make it easier to lose track of play with the removal of auto-play features and turbo features that speed the game up too, and more tracking to show how long a play session has lasted for and how many total wins or losses during that session. Perhaps the most impactful change that will come however will be the change that removes the ability to re-gamble money that has been requested for withdrawal for all UK based casino games, a feature that is somewhat expected to move to other services in time too.
Another of the potential changes could be aimed at advertising options too as a recent survey conducted of over 12,000 people within the UK has suggested that the majority support a total ban on advertising options – the Royal Society for Public Health chief exec also stated that “We no longer allow air time to other products which harm our health, like tobacco products; gambling should be no different” in line with changes that will also hit the UK to ban advertising for junk food – given the widespread support shown by both the public and parliamentary support too, it could be expected that a ban for gambling advertising will be close behind.
Whilst these charges are solely aimed at the UK market, other countries will certainly look on to discover the potential success to make changes of their own, almost globally efforts to crack down on online gambling have started to occur with casinos as the particular aim, so seeing these changes spread isn’t all too unlikely.
