Notes to editors:
About the Betting and Gaming Council
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) is the new industry association for betting and gaming which represents betting shops, online betting and gaming businesses and casinos. The BGC, launched today (6th Nov) will represent around 90 percent of the betting and gaming market, and membership is open to all operators with a UK licence. Members will be required to adhere to a new BGC Code of Conduct. Its mission is to champion industry standards in betting and gaming to ensure an enjoyable, fair and safe betting and gaming experience for all customers.
Young People and Gambling
The Gambling Commission published the 2019 Young People & Gambling survey in October which looks at gambling trends of 11 - 16-year-olds in Great Britain. The findings show that “11% of 11-16- year olds that took part in the survey say they have spent their own money on gambling in the past seven days, compared with 14% in 2018. The long-term trend shows a decline in participation since the questions were first asked in 2011.” The report can be found here.
About the Safer Gambling Commitments
Development of the Safer Gambling Commitments was facilitated and coordinated by the Senet Group. They will be delivered by working groups and subject matter experts drawn from across the gambling industry.
Further detail on the Safer Gambling Commitments can be found at:
www.safergamblingcommitments.co.uk
Key actions under the Safer Gambling Commitments
1. Prevent underage gambling and protect young people: prevent underage gambling on their platforms and introduce the most effective protections for early stage customers of any age-restricted product category
- Provide £10m of funding for a national education programme designed and delivered by relevant experts for children and young people over the next four years
- Work with the financial services industry to block gambling transactions on accounts held by under-18s
- Work with advertising bodies to explore using adtech to prevent under-18s seeing gambling adverts online
2. Increase support for treatment of gambling harm: support the scaling up of treatment services across the UK by recognised treatment providers as part of a long-term strategic plan
- We will engage with national stakeholders and recognised treatment and support providers as they map capacity requirements alongside gaining a comprehensive understanding of need and agree increased financial support over the next five years that supports delivery of this strategic plan.
3. Strengthen and expand codes of practice for advertising and marketing: develop and adopt the highest standards in marketing and advertising codes of conduct
- Commission an independent review into the effectiveness and impact of the whistle-to-whistle television advertising ban
- Develop and adopt a new Code of Conduct for sponsorship activities, including integrating safer gambling into brand activation in consultation with sports clubs, rights holders and advertising bodies by 2020
- Develop a new Code of Conduct for Responsible Promotions, including bonuses, customer contact, VIP promotions and rewards
4. Protect and empower our customers: introduce new player protections in product design and customer engagement, making it easier for people to gamble safely
- Create new industry–wide standards to embed safer gambling practices throughout the customers’ gambling experience, including publishing a minimum set of markers of harm and interventions to identify and interact with at-risk customers
- Work with operators and industry partners to devise and implement best practice in relation to identifying and interacting with at-risk customers via affordability assessments
- Work with the banking industry to encourage all banks to offer blocking software
- Develop clear and consistent product labelling and product information to help customers make informed choices
- Working with government and the regulator, we will explore creating a mechanism to enable gambling companies to share data on vulnerable or at-risk customers
5. Promote a culture of safer gambling: create a positive culture within both their businesses and the industry, where safer and well-controlled gambling is the norm
- Commit our businesses to achieve GamCare’s Safer Gambling Standard and to work towards achieving the Advanced Level Awards
- Ensure all participating operators have an appropriate Employee Safer Gambling Policy setting out actions to deliver these commitments, including internal training programmes to build awareness, capability and capacity on Safer Gambling practices and standards across our workforce
- Develop an open source collaboration repository for all gambling companies to access safer gambling tools, open source code and share best practice to raise safety standards across the industry.
