It's not the performance and rules of individual agencies but the overall fragmented nature of the business. You have ASA, UKGC, CAP and whichever other acronym is relevant and sometimes these can be contradictory in their actions, for example approving compliance to games then deciding the theme cannot be used in advertising or displayed on casino home pages.
The whole industry lacks a single entity which can administer from start to finish for the operator.
Thats like pretty much any other government department though. Have you ever tried dealing with the council for pretty much anything? You end up speaking to 10 departments to get permission to cut a dead tree down!
I really don't see the problem in banning ads that appeal to children. There are 1000's of slots out there, why the need to promote one call Alice in Wonderland in banners on Facebook? The 'do not promote to children' rule has always been there, its not new, its just another thing casinos chose to ignore.
The UKGC from its inception in 2007 has had nearly 12 years to understand the industry and yet has consistently failed to do so. It lacks knowledge, perception and expertise and so tries to be everything to everybody and fails miserably. True, it's better than it was but is still way short of the mark even allowing for the learning curve. It was initially staffed by Civil Service retirees in the main and clearly had little input from people who actually had sufficient knowledge of the online gambling process and market.
This is why it took them until 2015 to make operators use a UK license for UK players, why they've yet to address the issue of reversals despite this being a major RG issue for over a decade but then keep banging the RG drum.
They haven't made the obvious decision (that I know of) to make casinos list co-licensees in their offers and terms despite the huge amount of grief this has caused players SE'd from other sites when it comes to withdrawing.
They haven't issued clear and concise details of exactly what proofs SoW should require and leave it to the casino to decide if they are 'satisfied'. The same goes for levels of affordability which is why operators are being over-zealous for fear of being fined, beyond reasonable common sense and therefore to the detriment of many players. Yet none of this is applied to high street bookies.
I agree with most of that, but you are wrong about high street bookies. I've seen a file of KYC documents held at my local Coral before it closed and it was MUCH bigger than I thought it would be. The SoW one was smaller, but still bigger than expected, considering the size of the shop and location. It is much harder to enforce in a shop though, and much easier for people to get round. Coral are installing face recognition cameras in all their branches at the moment, and the reason is two fold. One is so that any SE'd customer can't walk into any shop in the country without being flagged up. The second is for AML purposes. How successful it will be remains to be seen, but they aren't doing it because they felt like it, they are doing it because they were told they had to tighten up on those areas in retail outlets. For anyone who uses Coral, the cameras being used for this are mounted just behind the counter, and are white dome ones, similar to the ones below. They aren't connected yet but will be before the end of year.
Online, they have to abide by the same rules as anyone else. My view is that fines shouldn't be used. If theres evidence that they systematically have allowed people with clear gambling problems, or systematically failed to do AML checks when needed, then they should have their license suspended for 3/6 months for a first offence and 5 years for the second one. Not just the large firms, all of them. Watch how quickly things are done then.
It has consistently responded robustly to selective news articles and opinions voiced in the lefty media and BBC whilst ignoring the practicalities that actually apply to most players, some of which I mentioned above.
Their GAMSTOP scheme was all very nice on paper yet as we said could never be really effective until they worked with payment providers to ensure they only actioned UK deposits to UK-licensed sites. Now we've seen a huge rise in unlicensed gambling and the sites that promote it.
They've licensed at least a couple of criminal operators too.
I know one person who dealt with them in trying to become a licensed ADR and was staggered when it came to their ignorance and lack of industry knowledge.
I think the fact most of what the UKGC does is clueless is pretty much accepted by everyone
I mean, how many people cut down gambling by only being able to play 100 autospins!
So having to deal with this, the ASA and all the other agencies must be a horror show for any licensee and require a large amount of resources. The UKGC is not fit for purpose and needs to be reorganized so it takes into account all aspects of the industry, operators, players, specialist advertising and complaints.
Because at the moment there is no danger of a new corner shop growing into the next chain store.
But the ASA and CAP codes apply to every single advertiser in the UK, not just gambling firms, and were around much earlier than most casinos. Granted there are specific CAP codes for remote operators, but the rules have been there years. In this instance Midaur seem to be implying they had to change how they did things in regard to marketing due to the ASA. But Midaur got their license in 2017, well after the 'not appeal to children' or 'must show terms' parts of the code were added. It isn't the fault of the ASA that they didn't read the rules properly. It's also not the ASA who sanction or 'fine' them, its the UKGC. The 'the big bookies get away with it' type comments are irrelevant. If you know someone who's burglaring houses and gets away with it, it doesn't mean you can do the same. Operate within the rules and you won't get in trouble.
I know it's not easy for casinos to operate in the UK, but certain things are easy to follow, CAP codes are one of them in my view.
