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The rules were perfectly adequate, the UKGC has made them more complex for absolutely no reason. The 2002 act worked fine in other industries, and would have worked fine if it was enforced at an earlier point.<br />
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William Hill were, I think, the only firm who actually took proper action back then, but I know personally 3 people who had to supply SoW to them pre 2005.
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</blockquote>Much of the issue is down to bad communication and woolly rules specified by the UKGC - an example is the 'void bets' for dupe-account SE players. We all expect the bets to be refunded if voided and indeed voice our belief that is so on here, quite regularly. Read the wording however and nowhere does the UKGC actually state deposits MUST be refunded, they certainly infer so but don't state it outright (at least they didn't last time I checked). <br />
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The operators are not experts in UK laws and financial regulations, especially the foreign-owned ones and quite reasonably expect the UKGC to be clear and specific in how these apply to the gaming industry - after all, they pay big fees for their licenses, right? <br />
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I agree now things are much clearer but before it was almost like the operators were being set up to fail by the UKGC. It must be a nightmare to balance the UKGC rules alongside the more detailed legislation they are based on and know which way to turn. <br />
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Colin - a great example of what operators are up against is this reply from the UKGC regarding demo slots:<br />
<a href="https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/the-ukgc-and-demo-slots-and-games-official-reply.87283/" class="link link--internal">https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/the-ukgc-and-demo-slots-and-games-official-reply.87283/</a><br />
You read the first two paragraphs and affiliates are exempt as they don't offer the real-money product themselves, i.e. aren't operators. <br />
Reda further down and it goes on to infer that if the games are sourced from a casino website they are banned, but not if from an alternative source like a developer, then again the developer will likely have a UKGC License and therefore would need to verify lol... <br />
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So a woolly reply and it's no wonder operators get things wrong - it seems they've learnt lessons though as most aff programmes have erred on the side of caution and banned UK affs from offering demo games to UK IP's without verification, or simply not at all. Which kinda contradicts the opening paragraphs. That's why at gamingslots we've barred UK IP's. <br />
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So this is why I seldom jump down the throat of casinos when they get fines - it must be a complete nightmare for them to interpret some of the regulatory text they are presented with. This then leads to over-caution and we get threads about people being permanently excluded from sites despite their GamStop expiring, possibly another example of casinos being over-zealous when it comes to regulation. Imagine an ex-GamStop player in the Guardian "I excluded for a year via GamStop and 7 days after expiry I lost 2 million quid at 32Red". It's no wonder posters are on here complaining about the way casinos treat them when they believe the axe may fall any minute.</div>