Isle of Man gambling regulator may update policies in wake of survey report

A study from the regulator has thrown light on operators’ responsible gambling measures.

UK.- The Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC) has announced that it may review its responsible gambling policies following the publication of a new report on licensees’ measures. Responses from 33 of 35 registered Isle of Man gambling licensees were recorded in the Online Responsible Gambling Survey Report, which looked at aspects of responsible gambling controls on online gambling sites from January 1 to December 31, 2023.

The report found that Isle of Man gambling licensees who responded were content with the effectiveness of their measures in the area. While 73 per cent had received a complaint about responsible gambling in 2023, these were mostly about limits or exclusions or demands to provide documents for affordability checks.

The report found that licensees blocked 2,972 underage players from gambling via their websites last year. Most often this was via age consent requests asking for a date of birth to access the website. In addition to this, 32 operators said they used monitoring to detect underage players. All of them described the tools they were using as “effective” or “very effective” in preventing minors from gambling. Moreover, 79 per cent of licensees reported no cases of underage players registering to use their services.

Meanwhile, 31 licensees said they used ethical marketing policies and avoided targeting advertising at underage consumers. Some 27 operators had contractual restrictions in place with affiliates and other third-party marketing providers aimed at preventing marketing to minors, while 20 had social media policies on the issue.

However, only 2.5 per cent of Isle of Man gambling licensees’ customers used responsible gambling tools despite all operators having systems in place. Isle of Man rules require operators to offer at least one form of elective control. Some 31 operators allowed elective deposit limits, 22 elective spending limits and 16 elective loss limits.

Such tools were used by just 67,907 customers. However, a third of respondents was not able to provide detailed data on usage, which led the GSC to conclude that take-up may be higher than stated.

The report also raised some concerns about the time taken to process self-exclusion requests. Some 21,999 players, or 0.8 per cent of all players in the market, had signed up for self-exclusion by the end of December 2023. 

While most were processed straight away, some requests had taken over 12 hours to implement. Most licensees offered self-exclusion periods of six months, a year, five years or permanent exclusion. Among the players choosing the minimum period, 94 per cent were excluded immediately and 6 per cent within six hours. But for the other periods, 19 per cent of exclusions took up to six hours, 21 per cent up to 12 hours and 4 per cent took longer.

The GSC said: “The time taken to action a self-exclusion request varied by the means by which a customer made the request. Requests received by email could take six hours to take effect compared to customer-managed account options that would usually take effect immediately. All respondents could apply at least one form of self-exclusion request within six hours.”

The GSC added that there had been two complaints about breaches of self-exclusion controls. Meanwhile, the regulator said it may update its responsible gambling policy as a result of the report. 

It said: “The GSC is committed to ensuring that the interventions that are specified in regulations are evidence-led and intends to use the results of the survey to inform future legislative changes. As requirements evolve with emerging changes, it is crucial that licensees fully understand their responsibilities to ensure compliance at the earliest opportunity. 

“To achieve this, the GSC will identify opportunities to improve understanding of regulatory requirements by engaging with licensees, consumers and others to clarify licensees’ responsibilities.”

Earlier this month, the GSC issued a fine of £140,000 against the digital hosting provider Cyberhorizon. The regulator said it uncovered multiple breaches of the Gambling (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) Code 2019 after launching an investigation in June last year.

Cyberhorizon, which provides video platforms, no longer has a licence in the jurisdiction but held one between March 5 2021 and September 25 2023. It’s unclear why it had a gambling licence, but the regulator found that it failed to review its customer risk assessment.