Gambling Commission: results in from first stage of financial risk check pilot
The regulator continues to evaluate the feasibility of financial risk assessments for online gambling.
UK.- Helen Rhodes, the British Gambling Commission’s director of major projects and evaluations, has provided an update on the regulator’s pilot of financial risk checks for online gambling. The first stage of the pilot began on August 30 and is now complete.
The pilot focuses on the use of frictionless financial risk assessments by credit agencies using historical data. The aim is to complete the pilot by April 2025.
The regulator says the pilot will be tested against four key criteria. Stage 1 focused on how many high-spending customers could be assessed without disruptions. Subsequent stages will focus on how quickly credit reference agencies can return assessments, how relevant and accurate the data is for assessing financial risk and how easily it can integrate the assessments into processes.
Results from stage 1
The findings from Stage 1 come from a cohort of inactive customers. More than 530,000 assessments were conducted across three credit reference agencies on around 300,000 accounts. The accuracy and quality of financial risk assessments provided by credit reference agencies was tested, with consideration given to how participants in the pilot prepared data for the credit reference agencies and how the data was returned to participants.
The Gambling Commission reported that 95 per cent of checks were conducted frictionlessly, with credit reference agencies able to match the data provided by operators and give automated feedback. Some 92 per cent of cases had a previous financial risk assessment available, while 3 per cent were classified as “thin files” (the customer had no significant credit history or negative indicators) and 5 per cent of assessments failed, mainly due to unmatched data and, to a lesser extend, formatting errors by operators.
The regulator said the findings highlighted the importance of data accuracy and consistency and the need for operators to improve data quality to minimise errors. Variations in the reporting methods used by different credit reference agencies, such as different interpretations of red, amber and green ratings, showed a need for standardised definitions and timeframes for more consistent reporting.
Stage 2 will now evaluate how quickly credit reference agencies can return a financial risk assessment.
Rhodes said: “The pilot exercise is proving to be worthwhile in testing how financial risk assessments might work in practice and exploring practical implementation issues before final decisions are made. Taking a staged approach to the pilot means that issues identified in the first stage can be explored further, such as data consistency across credit reference agencies where appropriate and data accuracy from operators.
“A key part of our work will also be to further support operators in considering how financial risk assessments could be combined with other indicators of harm, which gambling businesses already monitor, to support customers in the most frictionless manner possible.”
The pilot is separate from the light-touch affordability checks that were implemented on August 28 last year. The latter were introduced with an initial £500 deposit threshold, which will be reduced to £150 from February 28. While the preliminary findings of the pilot have now been published, the regulator advises stakeholders not to draw comparisons yet.
British online gambling revenue on the rise
The Gambling Commission’s latest data shows that British online gambling gross yield (GGY) reached £1.54bn in the final quarter of 2024. That’s a rise of 21 per cent year-on-year and 16.7 per cent from the third quarter. The number of bets and spins rose by 8 per cent year-on-year to a record 25.9 billion despite a 3 per cent drop in the number of active player accounts.
Online slots generated £709m, a rise of 15 per cent year-on-year. The number of spins reached 23.9 billion, a rise of 9 per cent, and the average number of monthly active accounts increased by 10 per cent.
