Cashless land-based gaming makes it easier to overspend – GC survey
A new survey commissioned by the British Gambling Commission has found that players think cashless payments make it easier to overspend on land-based gaming.
UK.- The British Gambling Commission has published the results of an online survey that found that players feel less in control with cashless land-based gaming and fear the risk of overspending.
The regulator has proposed the development of an app to record cashless payments and allow operator intervention where necessary as a means to reduce the chance of any heightened risk.
The Gambling Commission carried out its new survey as part of its Consumer Voice campaign, which aims to gain opinions from gambling customers. Conducted by 2CV, it was answered by 314 players who had used land-based gaming in the prior 12 months.
It found that cash remains the most popular method of payment for land-based gambling, with 77 per cent preferring cash.
Some 85 per cent of respondents said they thought that making a cashless payment, for example by debit card or via a mobile contactless payment platform, made it easier for them to spend more money than they intended. Moreover, 77 per cent said cashless payments made it easier to spend more time gambling.
The survey found that 68 per cent had difficulty in keeping track of their total spending when using cashless payments, while 70 per cent thought that using cash made it easier to set personal spending limits.
More than a third said they spend a little more than they intended when using a contactless card payment, while 13 per cent said they would spend a lot more.
With cash payments, that fell to 9 per cent who spend a little more than intended, and 1 per cent who spend a lot more.
Calls for an app to track cashless gambling activity
The Gambling Commission has proposed that it could be beneficial to create an app to allow customers to track cashless gambling activity and operators to intervene if needed.
The 2CV survey found that 22 per cent of respondents would be happy to pay for gambling through an app that permitted gambling companies to access and track their data, while 33 per said they wouldn’t due to concerns about privacy.
Gambling Commission: a third of gamblers play because of ads
Last week, the Gambling Commission published data from a survey that sought to measure the reach and impact of gambling advertising.
The survey found that 34 per cent of gamblers reported having spent money on gambling in the past year as a result of advertising.
The most likely marketing techniques to prompt players to spend money were free bets or money to spend with a gambling company, with 22 per cent of the 4,566 gamblers surveyed having spent money as a result.
Meanwhile, the UK government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has approved a 55 per cent increase in the licence fees for gaming operators and suppliers in Great Britain to cover the Gambling Commission’s increased operating costs.
Andrew Rhodes has been appointed as interim chief executive of the Gambling Commission for 18 months while the British gambling regulator looks for a candidate to fill the role on a permanent basis.
