Do You Know Your Rights as an Online Gambler?

Posted by Harry Kane on Monday, June 17, 2019

The online gambling market has boomed since 2010, whilst the GGY for this sector increased by a staggering 13.7% in the year ending March 2018. In total, the iGaming space now generates £5.4 billion per annum, with this number likely to increase incrementally over time.

Interestingly, the online sector now accounts for 37.3% of the gambling industry as a whole, and it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that it will have become the dominant channel for players during the course of the next decade or so.

This ultimately means that a growing number of gamblers are now active online, with players continuing to transition from brick-and-mortar casinos and bookmakers. But what are your rights as an online gambler, and how can they help you safeguard your experience with operators?

Your Basic Rights as an Online Gambler

As a gambler in the UK, the bulk of your rights are safeguarded by the rules and regulations that have been laid out by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).

These regulatory measures apply to all brands that operate within the boundaries of the UK, including those that have chosen to base themselves in tax-friendly and overseas territories such as Gibraltar.

These measures are also supported by overarching legislation such as the Consumer Rights Act of 2015, ensuring that players are guaranteed transparency, responsible gambling advice and secure banking transactions when wagering online.

The Consumer Rights Act of 2015 provides a particularly pertinent example, as this dictates that players enter into a formal contract with their chosen operator whenever they complete a deposit or withdrawal. The wording of this contract is designed to be extremely transparent and concise, in order to ensure that players make informed decisions that can safeguard their activity over time.

This also prevents operators from hiding away key contractual points in their small print, whilst the UKGC has recently introduced legislation that actively compels brands to create fairer and more transparent terms and conditions surrounding withdrawals.

The notion of transparency also brings us on to the fairness of results, as reputable online casinos in the UK are compelled to offer games that deliver entirely random outcomes.

To achieve this, operators must run all of their slots, live and table games using random number generators (RNGs), in order to guarantee that all dealers and outcomes are completely arbitrary and non-sequential. This is a condition of all licenses issued by the UKGC, whilst fully certified operators must be tested by independent third-parties with expertise in iGaming software.

The market leader in this respect is eCogra, which provide approved testing agency services to operators throughout the iGaming marketplace. Other auditors include companies such as Technical Systems Testing (TST) and iTechLabs, with these firms also working diligently to test an operator’s advertised return-to-player (RTP) rate, which in turn ensures that players can manage their bankroll efficiently.

Online Gamblers and Their Privacy

As an online gambler, you also have a right to privacy, with this being currently governed by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation. This was enacted on May 25th of last year and creates a legal framework in which online casinos (and other businesses) must take the appropriate technical and organisational steps to safeguard your personal data.

It’s inevitable that operators will collate data on their customers over time, although the vast majority of this is used to enhance your online experience. The GDPR legislation also grants you the right to secure a copy of the data that a company has collected on you, whilst you can also make a written request to have this information erased in some instances.

As an online gambler, it’s also perfectly reasonable to expect that an operator will safeguard your financial data and the integrity of each individual transaction.

However, it’s important that you take proactive steps to uphold these rights, primarily by gambling through online casinos that boasted advanced Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. In fact, 128-bit encryption is considered to be the industry standard for online casino platforms, whilst some operators have secured their sites with 256-bit encryption.

Without this type of encryption, the information included in financial transactions can be passed freely from one server to another in plain text. This immediately makes the data accessible across several servers in real-time, placing your information at risk and making you vulnerable to the threat of cyber-theft.

Protection Against Gambling Harm and Problem Levels of Activity

The UKGC is working increasingly hard to keep players from gambling-related harm, with this one of its key goals between now and 2021.

This means that modern players can expect to receive significant safeguards when gambling online, and they have the right to benefit from various tools as well as access a number of established health organisations.

One such tool is the so-called GamStop feature, which is essentially an independent self-exclusion scheme that operators are encouraged to sign up to. Whilst this has had some technical issues, it essentially allows players to abstain from gambling platforms for a period of at least six months, whilst it also prevents them from receiving marketing emails.

Some operators will also offer players a specified cooling-off period,

The cooling-off (also called time-out) tool suspends the gambler’s play for a shorter period of time that normally extends from 24 hours to half a year, depending on the individual player’s request. Cool-off periods are enforced in conjunction with the online casino, which declines real-money bets from the player within the specified timeframe.

Then there’s the so-called ‘Reality Check’ feature, which provides a real-time reminder of how much times players have spent playing at a particular online casino. Players are prompted to set a personalised reminder as soon as they log in, with options ranging from as little as 10 minutes to several hours.

You’ll also be able to set individual deposit limits at a UK casino, which restrict how much you spend on a daily basis. Whilst this tool is commonly associated with problem gamblers, it can also be used by individuals who have minimal bankroll and want to manage this with caution.

The Last Word

Ultimately, modern online gamblers are protected by various consumer and data laws, whilst the UKGC is also working consistently with operators to provide additional safeguards and responsible gambling tools.

It’s important that you understand these laws and tools, as this helps to protect yourself as a player whilst simultaneously taking advantage of the various features that operators offer in the digital space.

There’s still work to be done in this respect, of course, but even now players have ample rights and safeguards that help them to indulge their passion for gambling online.