Gambling Commission CEO warns UK adult gaming centres to comply after suspensions
Andrew Rhodes also teased expected reforms to Gaming Machine Technical Standards.
UK.- The Gambling Commission’s CEO Andrew Rhodes has warned land-based gaming halls to ensure their utmost compliance with regulations. He used his speech to the Annual Convention of the gaming hall trade body Bacta to reiterate some of the regulator’s main concerns.
Rhodes noted that the Gambling Commission had observed an improvement since a series of assessments last year, but that self-exclusion was still a topic of concern. The regulator wrote to all adult gaming centre licensees about this at the start of the year, but Rhodes says the message still didn’t get through to all operators.
AGC licence suspensions
Rhodes reminded operators of the licence suspensions issued for self-exclusion failings this year.
“Unfortunately, despite the warnings, some operators weren’t taking their responsibilities seriously,” Rhodes said. “So 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.
He added: “Nobody wants to see negative headlines and a point that I’ve made many times is that 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.”
Rhodes noted that AGCs and Family Entertainment Centres represent 2 per cent of the overall gambling industry but sometimes get disproportionate more media exposure.
“The action that we take – and we’ve actually undertaken some 13 suspensions across the whole industry in the last few months – it’s not just to protect consumers, it’s also to protect you. All of you who are making investments and making an effort to deliver high standards should expect to see the regulator take action against those who don’t.
“Those who fail to do what they’re required to do. They’re not just letting their customers down, they’re letting you down and they’re leaving you open to criticism as a whole sector.”
Reforms of gaming machine technical standards
On a positive note, Rhodes praised the work of the Bacta SR Exchange event in Leeds, where workshops were staged. He also welcomed the amount of response to the consultation on games machines technical standards launched early in the year, which attracted over 1,000 pre-consultation responses.
He said there is general support for the proposals to consolidate the existing 12 Gaming Machine Technical Standards (GMTS) into a single standard, update them for greater clarity and also to update the GMTS and Gaming Machine Testing Strategy to remove obsolete material.
The proposals that received the most comment are in relation to staff alerts, which many considered to be technically difficult to do since multiple machine makers using different protocols and displaying net position and elapsed time in one click. Rhodes said the regulator is making progress on this and said that the next steps would be measured, with any changes to involve gradual step-by-step implementation.
