British Gambling Commission outlines objectives for imminent financial risk check pilot

The regulator’s pilot will begin tomorrow.

UK.- The Gambling Commission has published a technical update ahead of the start of its pilot of financial risk assessments for online gambling tomorrow (Friday August 30). The pilot of frictionless “light touch” checks forms part of a four-stage plan and will see checks initially tested for customer accounts that receive deposits of over £500 a month.

The pilot involves credit agencies as well as online gambling operators and will examine the impact on customers. The deposit threshold will be reduced to £150 a month by February 28 2025.

Helen Rhodes, the Gambling Commission’s director of major policy projects and evaluations, stressed that the aim is to test the feasibility of mandatory risk assessments to identify high-spending customers that may be facing financial difficulties without impacting most recreational customers.

She said: “We want to tackle cases where customers have been able to gamble large amounts without any checks or support, where it was later identified that this led to significant harm. But we are proceeding cautiously to test whether and how financial risk assessments could be introduced in a way that supports high-spending customers in financial difficulties but also supports a frictionless customer journey for the vast majority of customers.”

She added that the regulator is testing how operators can be given limited information to understand the severity of a customer’s financial difficulties in order to take action.

“This would potentially allow operators in the future to look at other indicators of harm they have and tailor support to the customer, ranging from reducing marketing, encouraging the use of deposit limits, right up to ceasing the customer relationship. Where no financial difficulties are identified, the operator would not need to take any action.”

The pilot will initially be evaluated on Frictionless Part-1 criteria to assess the level of high-spending accounts that face financial risk assessments with no issues. The regulator estimates that this should be around 80 per cent of accounts involved. The ‘Frictionless Part-2’ criteria will then assess how fast credit reference agencies process checks and pass the results to operators. The pilot will also assess data relevance and accuracy to see whether the credit references provided are effective when compared to other sources of data.

A final assessment will consider the technical implementation of financial risk assessments, including the question of how data can be presented to operators to help them understand a customer’s level of financial risk.

Rhodes concluded: “If financial risk assessments are introduced in the future, we are committed to longer-term evaluation, which we have discussed in our March blog on this topic. This would enable the Commission and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) jointly to consider if the policy is delivering the intended outcomes for consumers in a live environment.”