Gambling is considered one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the United Kingdom. But recent studies show that the rapid growth of the gambling industry comes with the possibility of risking the resources of more than two million people to gambling addiction. In order to maintain law and order within the industry, the government of the United Kingdom called for a committee to take care of every activity going on, within the industry and to make sure the businesses are being carried out abiding by all the rules chalked out by these government bodies.
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission is one such body that makes sure the business policies of the individual authorized operators are aligning with the ones determined by the set of rules formulated by them. In 2018, a self-exclusion scheme called GamStop emerged which is again powered by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission for the people suffering from gambling addiction. This independent non-profit scheme makes sure that all the local sites are banned from accessing through all the devices used by the person registered under GamStop. It is considered as one of the primary methods of exclusion also because it comes free of cost to the citizens of the country. But it has to be mentioned that the GamStop exclusion is only applicable to the sites that are licensed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. GamStop is exclusive only to the citizens of the United Kingdom.
UKGC Restrictions to operators to cooperate with GamStop
All the UK-based operators or even the operators holding a license from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission are made to follow a certain set of rules and regulations and this is how the committee maintains law and order within the gambling industry. One of such instructions given to the operators is regarding its cooperation with GamStop. It is compulsory for these operators to abide by the rules set by the Commission in order to continue the validity of their license or else a hefty fine is usually imposed upon these operators to compensate for breaking rules. The Commission holds the power to terminate the license of these institutions if they do not comply with GamStop.
On the contrary, non-Gamstop sites that don’t operate under the purview of UKGC are free from the restrictions of Gamstop. The self-exclusion scheme is mandatory only for UKGC licensed gambling sites, but new non GamStop betting sites do not have to follow these rules and continue to welcome UK players. These sites licensed with offshore authorities such as Malta Gaming Authority, Gambling Commission of Great Britain, Government of Gibraltar, etc offer a fascinating range of games from leading providers including the likes of Microgaming, NetEnt, Playtech, etc, along with features such as VIP Club, Live Dealers, etc.
Why Do We Need Regulation Around Providers?
There are hundreds of leading providers such as Microgaming, Azumi, PlayTech, Arrow, NetEnt, etc serving the gambling industry with several thousand games ranging across slots, baccarat, poker, roulette, Bingo, Keno, Dart games, etc. These games come with a variety of promotional schemes including Free Spins, bonuses, multipliers, featured games, etc to lure in players. However, they also need to ensure that players don’t go haywire while investing funds into this range of games. While most of these providers are highly reputed and hence come with certain inherent standards, it is crucial that they abide by the UKGC guidelines in order to be streamlined and aligned with laws that apply to all. When it comes to GamStop, these providers will also have to follow the principles of self-exclusion in order to showcase their games on casinos that are following GamStop.
However, players registered on GamStop can access casinos licensed with offshore authorities such as “Malta Gaming Authority”, “Curacao eGaming”, “Government of Gibraltar” to avail of games of their choice.
Effects on the gambling industry of the United Kingdom
In order to stay relevant and useful to the population and also to remain the first choice when it comes to self-exclusion schemes, GamStop perpetually sticks to updating their policies. The sole purpose of this is to attract companies for collaboration to strengthen the foundation of the scheme. In the last few years, several of these new policies were adapted and restrictions have been imposed for the exact purpose. For the sake of the growth of the platform, many more of these restrictions and changed policies are something all of us can expect in near future.
These updated policies and restrictions are only restricted to operators licensed by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. But there are plenty of well-known gambling sites that are licensed by offshore license providers like Malta Gaming Authority, Government of Gibraltar, and so on. Although new betting sites not on GamStop do not have to follow this set of rules and can continue to welcome players from the United Kingdom.
Summing it into a Conclusion
The Commission made an announcement that urges all online gambling operators to take part in the multi-operator scheme of self-exclusion called GamStop in order to increase their popularity in the market by providing the most security to the punters to make their experience with gambling free from threat.
