UK Gambling Commission sends out warnings to operators

The UK Gambling Commission has sent out reminders to 6 online gaming operators after it was found that they were not following the transparency safety standards that were set out by the regulator on some of their games.

The games concerned offered the buy- in feature which encouraged players to gain access to a bonus feature at a significant cost, instead of playing the slot and waiting for the feature to trigger.

The UKGC mentioned that one game was charging players in the region of £3,000 to gain instant access to the bonus feature.

It appears that the 6 operators who were using this feature in their slot games have now removed it from their sites.

The regulator reiterated its published remote gambling and software technical standards, which set out the following requirements:

RTS requirement 3A: An explanation of the applicable rules must be easily available to the customer before they commit to gamble. The content including artwork and text must be accurate, and sufficient to explain all of the applicable rules and how to participate. All reasonable steps must be taken to ensure that the content is understandable.

RTS requirement 14A: Gambling products must not actively encourage customers to chase their losses, increase their stake or increase the amount they have decided to gamble, or continue to gamble after they have indicated that they wish to stop.

The way forward

Hopefully this will see the end of operators using this feature in their games, as the UKGC will no doubt reinforce this should it ever happen again. The buy-in feature no doubt encourages people to spend more in the hope of pocketing a substantial win, and possibly try to recoup any losses they have had. It also puts more problem gamblers, and players who may be at risk as they will be encouraged to spend more than they can afford.