Are Gambling Apps More Dangerous Than FOBTS ?

Posted by Harry Kane on Friday, March 15, 2019

During the first quarter in 2018, fairer gambling lobbyists and campaign groups pushed relentlessly for the FOBT maximum betting threshold to be capped at just £2. Thanks to the drive of these groups and a lack of unified opposition from groups like the RGA and the ABB, they ultimately achieved their objective and struck a devastating blow to the offline gambling sector.

After much discussion and a sustained delay, the new betting cap and underlying legislation will be rolled out as part of the Chancellor’s autumn budget in October. In the meantime, responsible gambling lobbyists are turning their attention elsewhere, with iGaming and mobile apps currently fixed in their line of sight.

This is an interesting development, and one that has already prompted the RGA and the ABB to merge to create a more purposeful lobbying force. But is the concern about mobile gambling apps valid, and do they pose a more significant threat than FOBTS?

Comparing Gambling Apps with FOBTs – The Key Concerns

In the case of FOBTs, the major issue raised by campaigners was the fact that they allowed punters to engage in disproportionately high stakes betting.

More specifically, bettors were able to wager up to £100 during each 20-second period when gambling on FOBTs, while some punters took full advantage of this to bet a staggering total of £300 per minute.

Apart from the high stakes nature of FOBTs, campaigners were also alarmed by the fact that gamblers could access these machines without having to verify their identity.

Not only did this potentially expose young and underage gamblers to high stakes betting, but punters were effectively able to wager huge sums of cash without having to prove that they could afford such expenditure.

With these points in mind, it’s relatively easy to see why the government’s department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport was compelled to legislate in this space and slash the FOBT betting cap. The only real surprise was that they decided to reduce the cap to just £2, particularly after the UKGC suggested a more reasonable maximum betting threshold of £30.

As we’ve already said, this may have had something to do with the lack of strong and unified opposition from gambling bodies, while the ABB seemed loath to accept that FOBTs represented such a significant social and economic challenges.

But why are mobile gambling apps now receiving similar scrutiny from lobbyists and responsible gaming campaigners? The answer lies largely with the accessibility of these platforms, which allow players to gamble freely and with impunity with just one or two clips.

The issue has also come to prominence as mobile gambling has become increasingly popular, with this channel a key driver of the iGaming space and the 13.7% growth that it achieved in the year ending March 2018 (the total value of this sector also peaked at £5.4 billion during this time).

There are other concerns too, aside from the accessibility of mobile gambling apps and the immersive nature of popular and themed slot titles.

One of these has been raised and published in the academic journal European Addiction Research, which found that mobile gamblers tended to bet more often due to their habit of checking their smartphone regularly throughout the day. Referred to by experts as “snacking”, this type of habitual behaviour plays a pivotal role in addiction and often compels individuals to bet even after they’ve suffered repeated losses.

This also ties into the accessible nature of mobile gambling apps, and the fact that they are opened from anywhere in the UK so long as the individual in question that a viable Internet connection.

There are even suggestions that some operators deploy sophisticated techniques to encourage such behaviours and facilitate mobile betting on a far larger scale. One of these is to create subtle psychological dependencies, which encourage players to gamble through a flurry of targeted notifications and emails.

This is known to activate specific mechanisms in the brain, which can take hold over time and lead to a point where people begin to anticipate “phantom notifications” even in instances where their phone has not gone off.

Even on a fundamental level, mobile gambling apps are designed to deliver small wins and near misses as part of their unique gameplay. This is indicative of most low-variance slot games, which usually deliver a return-to-player (RTP) rate of around 97%, which encourages far greater levels of engagement over an extended period of time.

These factors highlight the challenges surrounding mobile gambling apps, and the potential risks that they pose to vulnerable gamblers or those who may be predisposed to addiction. The question that remains, of course, is whether gambling apps pose a more serious issue than the much-maligned FOBTs in the digital age?

Why FOBTs Ultimately Pose the Greater Threat?

Ultimately, it’s hard to argue with the assertion that mobile gambling apps pose a genuine threat to vulnerable gamblers, while the observation that the current set of iGaming laws are in need of an overhaul is also valid.

However, there should be no doubt that FOBT’s pose a far greater threat in the current market, and there are two primary reasons for this.

Firstly, the UKGC has taken huge steps towards making online gambling far safer and more transparent in recent times, as it looks to achieve its core strategic objectives through 2021. These included the safeguarding of both vulnerable players and the reputation of the industry, which have moved the regulator to impose more stringent legislation and come down heavily on brands that don’t comply.

The RGA has also adopted a similar approach, as is borne out by the decision of this group to agree a “whistle-to-whistle” advertising ban during live sporting broadcasts. This proactive move, which was driven by some of the marketing leading iGaming brands, was in direct response to the specific concerns have had been raised by fairer gambling campaigners concerning the normalisation of wagering.

This is indicative of a far more proactive and forward-thinking regulatory mindset, which reflects well on the iGaming industry and suggests that steps will be taken to secure mobile apps.

In fact, the UKGC has already unveiled new rules that will alter the way in which casino operators verify the identity of players, with a view to restricting initial access and preventing players from wagering before they’ve been thoroughly vetted by gambling brands.

Additionally, private schemes such as GamStop and Gamban have provided viable avenues through which gamblers can exclude themselves from specified sites and all betting activities online.

While GamStop, in particular, may have experienced significant teething issues and failed to prevent some problem gamblers from circumnavigating their own self-exclusion simply by changing their username and email, the fact remains that these initiatives remain in place and provide an added layer of protection for players who are aware of their own vulnerability.

Some may argue that this isn’t enough, but the safeguards that exist online are far greater than those associated with offline gambling. From self-exclusion programs to stringent age verification measures on some sites, it’s clear that mobile gambling apps offer significantly more protection to customers than high street bookies and FOBTs.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, a spokesman for gambling reform and co-founder of Gamban, an app that blocks gambling websites, said: “Our gambling laws were written before smartphones even existed, and at a time when internet gambling was only getting started.