• The UKGC are
inviting gambling businesses, stakeholders and members of the public to voice
their opinion on proposed changes to regulations linked to marketing and
advertising, unfair terms and complaints and disputes.
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission have been working
with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to look at whether the terms,
conditions and practices that licensees use are fair and transparent,
especially around bonus offers. This work flows from UK consumer protection
legislation, which licensees must obey.
They are proposing changes to
our licence conditions to make clear to licensees that they must obey relevant
consumer protection legislation at all stages of dealing with consumers, and
not only when designing marketing materials.
Proposed changes to licence conditions and codes of practice
linked to the fair and open licensing objective
The LCCP sets out
the requirements operators must meet to hold a licence with the Gambling
Commission. They are proposing changes that make clearer our requirements that
operators are fair and open with consumers.
The proposals are based on
evidence of potential harm or unfair treatment to consumers, concerns about
lack of compliance with consumer protection legislation, declining public trust
in gambling, and concerns about the impact of gambling on children and young or
vulnerable people.
These proposals will support our three-year
strategy, which sets out how they will work with our partners to deliver a
gambling market that works for consumers. They represent only a part of the
work they are taking forwards to help protect the interests of consumers.
Marketing and advertising
- ensuring that licensees adhere to the UK
Advertising Codes
- making our current requirements about misleading
advertising clearer to licensees
- introducing a new requirement to prevent consumers
from receiving ‘spam’ marketing by email or SMS
- making clear to licensees that they are responsible
for the actions of any third party organisations that they use.
Unfair terms
- making clear that licensees must obey all relevant
Consumer Protection legislation at all stages of dealing with consumers and not
only when designing marketing
- materials including consumer notices as a licence
condition.
Complaints and
disputes
- making clearer that they expect licensees to handle
complaints in a fair, open, timely, transparent and effective manner
- introducing an eight-week time limit for licensees
to deal with gambling complaints and disputes
- introducing new advice to licensees on receiving
and handling complaints
- seeking views on our approach to simplify and
streamline complaints processes, including work they are taking forward to
develop a framework of additional standards for approved ADR providers in the
gambling industry.
General
Not all of the
information that licensees prepare for consumers is easy to understand. They
are seeking views on whether they should introduce a standard of readability
that all licensees must meet when preparing consumer-facing material.
Through the proposals they want to:
- make clear what outcomes they require operators to
meet in terms of treating consumers in a fair and open manner
- improve our regulatory tools to support good
practices by licensees, and tackle poor practices
- permit licensees to design policies and procedures
that best suit the needs to their business
- provide advice which licensees must have regard to,
rather than prescribing action where necessary.
This consultation will be of
interest to all gambling operators, gambling customers, and to bodies or
individuals with an interest in the regulation of gambling.
They would
like you to share your own evidence and examples of good practice on the topics
for consultation.
They are also interested in your view of the impact
the issues and proposals may have on your business, including how these might
be potentially mitigated.
Please send your completed response form, or
just send your thoughts, to consultation@gamblingcommission.gov.uk
by
5pm on Sunday 22 April 2018. |
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