Tim Miller and UKGC Question the Efficiency of GAMSTOP
The Executive Director of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has spoken out about his concerns over the effectiveness of the GAMSTOP online self-exclusion scheme.
In a letter to the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) that was obtained by The Guardian, Miller spoke of the “unacceptable” issues that GAMSTOP has.
Faults and flaws
There have already been various difficulties with GAMSTOP, for a start, the self-exclusion scheme was supposed to be launched in late 2017, but this was delayed until the Spring of 2018.
Most assumed this was to iron out issues, but this task seems to have been unsuccessful as various faults have been found with GAMSTOP.
The concerns of the UKGC that the scheme may not be fit for purpose is a long way away from RGA Director of Social Responsibility, Fiona Palmer’s words in 2017, when she spoke highly of the planned scheme:
“With the branding now established and process design well advanced, the focus in the coming months will be on technology integration and industry communication. We are therefore confident that we will deliver self-exclusion on the truly national scale.”
It seems that this optimism from Palmer may have ill-founded, however, as tests have shown that customers who opt for self-exclusion can register with the site again by simply changing the surname on the account, while leaving their address, phone number, and other details the same.
Also, GAMSTOP has difficulty with one of its main purposes, with self-excluded players still receiving marketing e-mails from operators.
A response from a GAMSTOP spokesman explained that there were still tweaks that needed to be made to the scheme, including working out a way to ensure that players do not receive marketing e-mails after self-exclusion while staying in line with data protection rules.