SBC News

Through the lens of his personal experiences of gambling addiction, Lee Willows, Founder & Executive Chair of ESG Gaming – a non-profit social responsibility, sustainability and harm minimisation group – discussed consumer protection, player integrity and safeguarding.

At a session in the Esports Betting Conference during ICE London 2024, Willows expressed how he used this knowledge of gambling harms to do greater good, establishing one of the major charities in the space.

Openly discussing sensitive topics such as suicide and being at ‘rock bottom’, the Founder emphasised that, particularly with the esports community, operators and publishers must be more mindful as the fanbase tends to be younger.

“There is a lot of excitement around the potential of gambling operators getting involved with esports which is great, but also, like alcohol, gambling can be an incredibly addictive substance,” he said.

Taking us back 11 years, Willows described going to the casino for the very first t..

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has achieved a principal objective, publishing the first datasets of the Gambling Survey of Great Britain (GSGB).

Following consultations undertaken between 2020 and 2021, the Commission launched the GSGB project to change how data is collected on “adult gambling participation and problem gambling prevalence statistics.“

Today, wave one of the GSGB datasets was released, centered on gambling participation, focusing on gambling activities that adults participate in and their reasons for gambling. The Commission stands by the methodology of research and data collection, to improve the tracking of gambling trends over time on the public, offering frequent and consistent data collection among adults in Great Britain.

As detailed by Research Director Ben Haden: “The GSGB provides a consistent and frequent way of collecting data among adults in Great Britain and will provide regular data outputs to help us understand changes in gambling behavior among th..

The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) will persist in advocating for the government to comprehensively evaluate the implementation of financial risk checks on UK gambling customers.

The demand was underscored by BHA CEO, Julie Harrington, following Monday’s parliamentary debate concerning affordability checks, as proposed by the Gambling Review’s White Paper – a discussion tabled by UK Racing stakeholders.

MPs were implored to abandon the UK Gambling Commission’s (UKGC) endorsed plans to adopt mandatory affordability checks on player accounts that experience a net loss of £125 a month or £500 per year, and establish a further threshold for accounts that incur losses exceeding £1,000 within 24 hours or £2,000 within 90 days.

UK Racing voiced its apprehensions on Monday, asserting that such checks could potentially deplete its finances by up to £50m annually over the ensuing five years, consequently precipitating substantial job losses in rural areas.

Harrington emphasised the imp..

Finland’s Institute of Health and Welfare (THL) has expressed detailed concerns about the increasing instances of gambling-related disorders, even as Finland experiences a decline in gambling participation.

The observation was made by the Health Institute during its public survey to ascertain the prevalence of moderate and problem gambling risks among Finnish adults.

The Institute, responsible for monitoring records on disorders or abuse related to all forms of addiction, has conducted the “Gambling Population Survey” every four years, starting in 2007.

The 2023 survey, which involved 5,977 participants, revealed that 4.2% were engaged in moderate risk or problem gambling, equating to approximately 151,000 people at the population level. This represents an increase from 3% in previous THL surveys.

Despite THL’s findings showing a decline in gambling participation to 70% of Finns engaging in gambling activities in the past 12 months (65% of women and 75% of men) – which amounts to..

A Danish court in Næstved has ruled in favour of the Danish Gambling Authority (Spillemyndigheden) over a decision to block 83 gambling websites blocked in the country.

This marks a total of 10 instances where Spillemyndigheden has gone to court over a similar issue as it ramps up its efforts to root out illegal gambling out of Denmark.

The Danish gambling market was partially opened up in 2012, paving the way for illegal betting and online casino providers into the country. Since then, the Danish Gambling Authority has blocked a total of 359 unlicensed operators.

Detection comes as a result of a stringent monitoring process where Spillemyndigheden uses a combined methodology of automated searches and accepting reports from citizens and businesses.

After an operator has been found to be in breach of local regulations, the Danish gambling watchdog requests them to cease operations. If the activity persists, Spillemyndigheden can then take the case to the district court and ask i..

The PGA TOUR has made a significant commitment to sports betting integrity by entering a partnership with the Coalition of Responsible Sports Betting Advertising.

Focusing on ensuring responsible practices within sports betting advertising, the coalition was formed by the NFL and FOX in 2023. Other members include the MLB, NASCAR, NBA, WNBA, NHL, and NBC Sports.

Scott Warfield, Vice President of Gaming at the PGA TOUR, commented: “With the proliferation of sports betting in the United States, the PGA TOUR remains committed to establishing a safe and healthy marketplace for consumers.”

Overall, the coalition and its members aim to limit advertising only to adults of legal betting age and avoid the promotion of excessive gambling.

A joint statement by the organisation said: “As the legalisation of sports betting spreads nationwide, we feel it is critical to establish guardrails around how sports betting should be advertised to consumers across the United States.

“Each member of ..

The debate on UK gambling adopting mandatory affordability checks on customers has drawn distinct opinions across political ranks.

Yesterday, the debate was brought to Westminster Hall as MPs responded to UK racing’s petition to “abandon financial risk checks as proposed by the White Paper”.

Collecting over 103,000 signatures, UK racing cites that the current proposals favoured by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) of introducing ‘light checks’ on player accounts at a net loss of £125 a month or £500 per year are intrusive to recreational customers.

Furthermore, UK Racing states that the Commission’s proposal to introduce financial risk assessments on gambling accounts with losses greater than £1,000 within a rolling 24 hours or £2,000 within 90 days poses a direct threat to the heritage sport’s funding of stakeholders.

Christina Rees: Labour
Mandate of Gambling Review must be upheld

Opening the proceedings yesterday, MP Christina Rees (Labour, Neath) noted the sensitivities of the..

The Netherlands Gaming Authority (KSA) has released the new vision of its ‘Safe Play’ mission together with its updated objectives.

As part of its Supervisory Agenda 2024, the objectives highlight the areas where the KSA believes need to be strengthened with more robust risk protections.

Going forward into the year, the topics of particular focus as described by the regulatory watchdog will be:

Control of duty of care/addiction prevention: players are protected from risky or problematic gambling;
Combating illegal online offerings with further attention to the entire chain: at least 90% of players play with legal providers;
Support of partners, independent investigations and interventions in the physical domain: the KSA fights physical illegal gambling together with its partners (such as municipalities, police, OM, RIECS, Tax and FIOD);
Compliance with data delivery: providers provide the data necessary for monitoring in a timely, complete and accurate manner.

These have all been p..

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has congratulated four countries for meeting international AML standards and getting off the grey list.

Uganda, the UAE, Barbados and Gibraltar have all been excluded from the list of redtaped countries after the latest FATF preliminary meeting concluded that they have fixed all AML deficiencies within the agreed timeframes.

The Action Plan that the group of four was assigned to followed extensive evaluations that put them under increased monitoring by FATF. After an on-site visit to each of the countries, the regulator has decided to stop subjecting them to the process, given that they continue to strengthen their AML/CFT regimes.

The plenary session also concluded with a new risk-based guidance for the implementation of Recommendation 25 on the beneficial ownership and transparency of legal arrangements – seeking to prevent global crime syndicates from using legal pathways to launder money.

In this sense, an agreement was also made to la..

Glücksspielbehörde (GGL), the Federal Gambling Authority of Germany, has detailed its concerns regarding impending changes to the Strafgesetzbuch (StGB), the Criminal Code of Germany.

Speaking at the Lotto Talk event in Berlin, GGL Co-President Ronald Benter disclosed that the authority had issued an appeal to the Federal Ministry of Justice to ‘reconsider amendments to the Criminal Code’.

The Ministry of Justice has been implored to abandon amendments that would alter the current provisions enabling the application of Article 284 of the StGB.

Article 284 of the Criminal Code permits federal authorities to directly collaborate with the Staatsanwaltschaft, the Public Prosecution Office of Germany, to initiate criminal investigations into entities suspected of violating federal laws.

In his address, Benter stated that the provision was a crucial tool for the GGL to counteract illegal gambling conducted by foreign unlicensed operators.

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Justice has been t..