Steve Hoare

Brazil designs health observatory for gambling disorders 

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The PT government of Brazil has stated that mental health will be central to its national gambling policy, with the launch of the “Health Observatory on Gambling Disorders” — a first for South America.

The Observatory will be established to study, research, and advise on the prevention of gambling harms in parallel with Brazil’s new national betting market, which officially came into effect in January 2025 and further regulatory changes.

Formed under a Technical Cooperation Agreement (ACT), the Observatory represents a formal partnership between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Finance, aligning health protection, fiscal oversight and data-sharing under one framework.

The agreement was signed by Health Minister Alexandre Padilha and Finance Minister Fernando Haddad, signalling a unified government approach to prevention, treatment and responsible regulation.

Brazil: ACT first on Health & Gambling

The ACT establishes a permanent line of communication between the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) — part of the Ministry of Finance — and the Secretariat of Specialized Health Care (SAES) within the Ministry of Health.

Its aim is to create a continuous data exchange between both institutions, identifying vulnerable individuals and communities while enabling targeted interventions through Brazil’s Unified Health System (SUS).

The five-year agreement, renewable upon review, is designed to serve as the foundation of a national mental health strategy linked to the regulation of gambling and betting activity.

According to Regis Dudena, Secretary of Prizes and Betting, the Observatory and its framework are “the tangible results of the Interministerial Working Group on Mental Health and Prevention of Gambling Harms (GTI),” which unites several ministries and agencies in addressing social protection and harm reduction.

“The agreement formalises not just a valuable tool for putting public policies into action but a framework,” said Dudena. “It provides a structured flow of information between agencies and lays out the policies for prevention, risk reduction, and assistance to people with harmful gambling-related behaviours.”

Haddad’s sign off
Finance Minister Fernando Haddad described the initiative as a key moment in connecting fiscal responsibility with social welfare.

“We are very concerned about gambling-related issues; they affect families and have a huge impact on the economy,” Haddad said. “Our greatest concerns are the laundering of money through gambling and other crimes, and the negative consequences of gambling for health.

“For the Ministry of Health to be active, it needs to know, and we have that information. We are going to identify the most significant risk cases, both in crime and addiction, and report those to the Ministries of Justice and Health. The teams are trained to provide the best possible approach.”

The agreement also provides for the creation of educational materials and training programmes for SUS professionals, aimed at helping healthcare workers recognise signs of problem gambling and understand the structure of the betting market.

New public tools and care initiatives
Health Minister Alexandre Padilha described the launch of the Observatory as a “historic step” for Brazil.

“For the first time, we will have qualified information to identify risky behaviours, activate the SUS teams, and provide care and support to those suffering from compulsive gambling — a very invisible issue that destroys lives and families,” he said.

Together with the Observatory, the Ministry of Health has also launched the ‘Care Line for People with Problems Related to Gambling’, offering clinical guidelines, online support and in-person consultations to expand access to treatment across the country.

“The SUS will be ready to reach these people through in-person support, telehealth and the Digital SUS,” Padilha continued. “The message is clear: no one has to face this alone. The SUS is here to help and protect.”

2026: Observatory & self-exclusion

Padilha concluded that the ability to analyse and share data will be the driving force behind Brazil’s prevention strategy. The Ministry of Health confirmed that approximately 450 online consultations per month will be offered, with in-person follow-ups available when necessary.

“The SUS will be crucial in turning information into care,” Haddad added. “Through cooperation between the Ministries of Finance and Health, we can act preventively, responsibly and collaboratively to protect children, young people and adults, and provide real pathways of support to those who have become dependent.”

During 2026, the SPA plans to roll out a centralised self-exclusion system covering all licensed betting operators. Recognised as the SPA’s flagship player-protection initiative, Brazil’s self-exclusion is scheduled to enter beta testing by the close of 2025, ahead of its full nationwide implementation later in 2026.

Under the broader mental health strategy, the SPA’s self exclusion scheme is viewed as the tool system that allows individuals to block access to all licensed betting websites and opt out of receiving betting-related marketing linked to their CPF (tax identification number).

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KSA funds €2m Early Detection of Gambling Harm Plan

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Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), the Gambling Authority of the Netherlands, has agreed to fund the establishment of an Early Detection of Gambling Harm Partnership (SVSG).

Announced this morning as a principal project of the regulator, the KSA confirmed it will allocate €2m from the Addiction Prevention Fund to build a nationwide framework for earlier identification of gambling harm and faster access to support services.

The SVSG brings together four core organisations at the centre of Dutch public health and social care: the Trimbos Institute, the Dutch Association of Addiction Specialists (VKN), the Municipal Health Service (GGD GHOR Netherlands) and the Dutch Debt Assistance Route (NSR).

The regulator’s collaboration with Trimbos and the national addiction-care network is longstanding. Both groups previously supported the KSA in the development of its gambling addiction action plan, including the creation of treatment pathways, research guidelines and the customer-care training standards that licensed operators must meet to detect early signs of harm.

The new partnership will extend this work into the broader social domain, ensuring that municipalities, addiction services, debt advisers and peer-support groups can respond earlier and more consistently.

KSA underlined that the programme addresses a persistent national concern: gambling harm in the Netherlands is often identified too late. An estimated 209,000 people are at high risk of addiction, yet only a small proportion seeks treatment. Shame, financial stress and uncertainty about available support continue to deter people from accessing help until problems escalate.

By establishing the SVSG, the regulator aims to introduce an integrated early-detection model across healthcare, social services and local government—similar in structure to the 2019 national partnership for alcohol harm (SVA), which has shown the value of coordinated early-intervention strategies.

The SVSG will guide municipalities on embedding early-detection practices into local policy, facilitate nationwide knowledge exchange and ensure that training programmes, e-learning modules and clinical guidelines evolve with new evidence.

A pilot phase will launch in early 2026 across five municipalities, where local core teams, VKN regional officers and NSR project leaders will work together to identify and refer gambling problems at an earlier stage. Existing educational materials will be assessed and expanded where needed.

A broader training effort will also target frontline workers across the social domain, as well as students entering relevant professions, equipping them to recognise early indicators of gambling harm and confidently refer individuals to support. A national online environment will serve as a central hub for best-practice sharing.

From 2027, the model will scale to at least 15 municipalities, forming a consistent nationwide approach.The KSA stressed that the creation of the SVSG and the execution of its multi-year programme will not be disrupted by any political changes linked to the new Dutch government taking shape in 2026. The partnership is anchored in the national addiction-prevention framework and will continue irrespective of shifts in legislative priorities.

KSA chairman Michel Groothuizen welcomed the initiative, stating: “Many organisations have been working hard for years to reduce gambling harm, but often in isolation. With this partnership, we permanently bring together knowledge, healthcare, debt counselling and local partners. This makes it easier to find help, and players can get the support they need more quickly. This is an important step towards better consumer protection.”

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Lewis Hamilton ruled well off limits for betting marketing

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The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled against Lewis Hamilton’s inclusion in betting social media campaigns for the second time this quarter.

Betway has been told to remove a Facebook post from 4 July 2025 which centred around Formula One. The post featured a video of three F1 drives, filmed from behind, along with the Betway logo.

The driver standing in the middle of the trio wore a red uniform with ‘Hamilton’ sketched across the back, while the other two did not have any names. A heading read ‘Who’s the best of the Brits?’.

A complainant queried whether the ad violated the CAP Code by featuring someone who may be of strong appeal to under-18s. The ASA has upheld this complaint, reiterating its view that Hamilton has a strong appeal to young people and comes across as a role model.

The ASA’s statement explained: “The ad featured Sir Lewis Hamilton, who had won a joint-record seven Formula One World Drivers’ Championship titles and was recognised with a knighthood in 2021 for his outstanding achievements and contribution to motorsport.

“In his “Hall of Fame” bio on the Formula 1 website, Sir Lewis Hamilton was described as recognising his responsibility as a role model for young people, which further described that “the social media star encouraged his millions of supporters in ‘Team Hamilton’ to follow their dreams and never give up”.

The ASA did say that it may have allowed the use of an athlete with strong appeal to under-18s in a medium where visibility by that demographic could be excluded, but did not consider Facebook to be such a medium.

To support its rationale, the ASA referenced Hamilton’s 6.3 million Facebook followers – though noting that the demographic of these has not been determined – as well as his 1.6 million under-18 followers across Instagram and TikTok.

Hit brakes on Lewis Hamilton ads
To avoid bad press, it’s probably best for the betting industry to avoid using Hamilton, and probably other F1 drivers, on social media posts and other marketing. As noted above, this is not the first time the seven-time drivers champion has appeared in an ASA ruling.

Just under two months ago, a plethora of ASA rulings came out in just one day, one of which focused on Hamilton’s inclusion in a kwiff social media post. Similar to the Betway post, the kwiff one came ahead of the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this year, which Hamilton won.

Marketing is becoming an increasingly complex task for operators, with the CAP Code guidance presenting multiple factors for operators to consider. On the same day as the kwiff ruling, Betway was told to remove a post featuring Chelsea FC scarves and Sky Bet to remove a post featuring Gary Neville, despite football pundits and retired players previously being approved in other ASA rulings.

As the dust settles on last week’s UK budget, however, marketing expenditure is likely going to decrease too. Operators need to cut costs as they prepare for tax hikes to take effect from April next year, and marketing is a logical first step.

As marketing expenditure drops, perhaps recurrent complaints – the ASA has issued countless rulings this week while University of Bristol researchers seem to be a constant source of complaints – will also drop.

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Korean study shows ChatGPT and other AIs can develop gambling addiction 

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New research reveals large language models can exhibit human-like gambling addiction behaviours and shows they even possess internal “risk circuits” that can drive them toward bankruptcy. A new study from South Korea’s Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology presents the strongest evidence to date that popular large language models (LLMs) – including GPT-4o-mini, GPT-4.1-mini, Gemini-2.5-Flash,…

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Better Gambling Forum unveils scientific oversight committee to guard against industry bias

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The Better Gambling Forum (BGF), a Brain Capital Alliance-affiliated platform for evidence-based gambling policy, has announced the completion of its scientific oversight committee. The committee is composed of experts in a variety of fields, including public health, addiction science, and gambling understanding. BGF steering committee chairman Shawn Fluharty told Player Protection Hub: “We could sugarcoat…

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Dutch regulator goes after Unibet as players left unsupervised

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Optdeck Service Ltd, operator of Unibet in the Netherlands, has been fined €4m over duty of care failures.

The Dutch gambling commission, Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), confirmed that the failures occurred between 14 July 2022 and 1 July 2024, and that they were related to insufficient player protection measures.

“Gambling companies must protect players as much as possible from excessive participation and gambling addiction,” the regulator said.

Within the files requested and examined by the KSA, it was revealed that Optdeck continuously failed to intervene in cases where problem gambling indicators were present.

Several incidents involved gamblers spending “thousands of Euros” per day but information about their income was requested only weeks after. Also present in the documents reviewed by the KSA was an instance where money from a business account was used to gamble – a prohibited practice under Dutch law.

Michel Groothuizen, KSA Chairman, commented: “When there are signs of immoderate gambling behavior and someone bets a huge amount of money in a short time, a provider must investigate the origin of the money.

“It is essential that providers carry out this analysis adequately, because not all financial resources may simply be included. The KSA takes violations of the duty of care very seriously and will continue to act hard against them.”

Unibet, is everything alright?
This is not the first time Optdeck has landed in trouble with the Dutch regulator. Earlier in September, the operator was charged an additional €450,000 for offering Unibet customers bets on prohibited markets – corner kicks, yellow cards, and under-21 games.

The violations went on from October 2022 to May 2025 – overlapping with the time period when the player protection failures occurred.

Similar duty of care breaches are not limited just to Optdeck, however. Earlier this year, Unibet received a penalty of AU$1m (£481,000) in Australia for failure to restrict the access of hundreds of self-excluded accounts.

Another case from just over two months ago saw Platinum Gaming, operator of Unibet in the UK, receive a whopping £10m penalty for social responsibility and AML beaches

All of these instances build up the case for a bigger question – are such significant oversights region-locked or is there something far more bigger going on centrally at Unibet and its parents Kindred Group and FDJ United that requires urgent attention?

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UKGC tells retail ‘comply or be sorry’ amid self-exclusion concerns

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The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has increased its regulatory scrutiny of Adult Gaming Centres (AGCs) throughout this year.

Andrew RhodesCredit:UKGC
This was confirmed by UKGC CEO Andrew Rhodes himself in his speech during amusements trade body Bacta’s Annual Convention in Leeds.

Rhodes confirmed that official communiques were sent out by the regulator to all licensed AGCs earlier this year, reminding them of obligations around self-exclusion.

Although not directly referenced, this move could’ve been prompted by an undercover BBC investigation published back in June where a reporter was allowed access to multiple AGC venues in South England despite self-excluding themselves prior to that.

At the time, John Bollom, then-President of Bacta, criticised the investigation for being “unrepresentative” of the land-based arcade sector that the organisation represents – words also echoed by Rhodes in his latest speech.

“The media coverage often implies that one case or one example is indicative of the industry or sector as a whole. You know, this may be unfair, but it is the reality,” the UKGC CEO said.

“Earlier this year, the Commission wrote to all adult gaming centre licensees to remind them of their obligations around self-exclusion.

“Unfortunately, despite the warnings, some operators weren’t taking their responsibilities seriously. At the start of this month we announced that we had taken decisive regulatory action.

“Seven AGC operators have seen their operating licences immediately suspended this year for failing to be part of a self-exclusion scheme. While most of those licences have since been reinstated following clear steps to remedy failings, all operators concerned remain under investigation, which may result in further regulatory action being taken.”

Illegal land-based gambling ripe for culling
Whether or not the UKGC was reminded of its land-based compliance assessment duties by the BBC report remains a topic of speculation. One thing, however, that remains fully within the UKGC remit and which the regulator never leaves out of sight is funding.

The 25 November Budget announcement by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves revealed a total of £26m of additional funds set aside for the regulator, to be granted over a period of three years.

This was warmly welcomed by the UKGC and the importance of the announcement was further emphasised by Rhodes’ words: “In my 20 years on executive boards of public bodies I’ve never known that kind of multiple from the Treasury ever before.”

The top honcho of UK gambling regulation additionally revealed that the money will be used specifically to push back against illegal land-based gambling, but what exactly that fight will look like still remains to be seen.

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Montenegro rejects constitutional review of New Gambling Law

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The Government of Montenegro has rejected appeals demanding a constitutional review of articles authorised under the New Law on Games of Chance.

The challenge was filed by NVO, the national trade association for games-of-chance suppliers, and Lutrija Crne Gore (the Lottery of Montenegro), which has contested the provisions of Article 106.

The Incumbents cite that the “transitional and concession rules” set out in the legislation undermine constitutional rights of gambling licences authorised by the former laws of Montenegro.

According to the two parties, Article 106 of the New Law will breach the constitutional ban on retroactive legislation, create unequal treatment for operators with different contract expiry dates, and will further infringe on what they described as “acquired rights” linked to existing concessions.

PM Spajić says no…
A written opinion was submitted to the Vlada legislature directly by Prime Minister Milojko Spajić, who stated:

“After examining the submission, the government finds that the law does not have retroactive effect. The mandate on games of chance is an activity of public interest and holds exclusive rights for the state. Organisers therefore do not possess any rights that will be in breach of the New Law.

The government ensures a transitional period of 270 days to allow all organisers to align their business operations with the new requirements, in all fairness to all, regardless of who they might be.

Spajić continued: “The government ultimately decides that this disputed provision is not contrary to constitutional norms or international conventions, and that there is no prospect of bringing proceedings before the Constitutional Court with respect to Article 106 of the Law on Games of Chance.”

The PM’s opinion formed the legal basis upon which the cabinet rejected the petition for constitutional review. Although the constitutional challenge has been rejected, the new framework continues to attract criticism from Montenegro’s gambling licences.

Montenegrobet, the national association of licensed operators, has warned the government that it will introduce “unrealistic compliance obligations, disproportionate criminal-liability triggers, and licence-revocation grounds that could destabilise the legal market and hinder channelisation.”

The association has urged the government to reopen dialogue with gambling licences and revise several contentious provisions that will hinder market stability and suppress investment in domestic operators.

Gambling and Euro ascension
Following the decision, Montenegro’s New Law on Games of Chance passed in August 2023 – will proceed through a phased implementation in which the government will consider minimal changes.The Ministry of Finance has begun issuing secondary regulations covering licensing conditions, AML controls, supervision, and market conduct standards.

The launch of a modernised gambling framework is earmarked by the Spajić “Pro Europa” administration as a critical domestic reform supporting Montenegro’s full accession to the European Union – in which PM Spajić and the government seek to become a full member state by 2028.

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