UK Gambling Commission’s ’suicide watch’
The UKGC consults on suicide notifications, PG stat wars, MAS difficulties, FDJ warned +More
Good morning. On today’s agenda:
The Gambling Commission launches consultation on suicide notifications.
Meanwhile, the Commission and the BGC trade statistical barbs.
Massachusetts makes life difficult for affiliates – as does New York.
The French regulator warns FDJ over its ads strategy.
High-profile crypto collapses causes regulators to act.
UKGC suicide consultation
The latest consultation process asks whether notification of suicides should be among the operators’ licensing provisions.
Awareness: The latest LCCP consultation from the UK Gambling Commission is seeking opinions about whether it should be a requirement for all licensees to inform the Commission “when they become aware that a person who has gambled with them has died by suicide”.
If such a provision were to come into force it would likely add further fuel to the emotive and politically charged issue of the relationship between problem gambling and suicide.
Background: In 2021, Public Health England estimated that 434 problem gamblers died by suicide in 2019, although this report was criticised for unsound analysis and has now been withdrawn.
FOI requests found UKGC considered that the PHE approach was “inaccurate” and based on unreliable data, but suppressed these findings.
In 2022, the UKGC stated it was “encouraged” that its pilot gambling prevalence survey identified one respondent (out of more than 1,000) who had attempted suicide.
A document released following an FOI request showed the UKGC engaged in speculation about how estimates of suicides associated with problem gambling might be increased in the future.
Questions: C+M put a number of questions to the Commission about this new consultation, including:
Whether an individual having died by by suicide will have any bearing on enforcement actions and sanctions even if the alleged regulatory infraction is relatively minor?
Whether the National Lottery will be required to comply with this condition – and, if so, whether it will also apply by extension to its retailers?
Whether the Commission will seek to determine causality between regulatory failings and any instances of suicide by a customer?
Whether the GC will consult with the relevant coroner as part of its investigations?
In response to C+M’s enquiry, a Commission spokesperson said it was “keen for everyone who has an interest in the regulation of gambling to have their say and we will carefully consider all responses to the consultation”.
“Your queries have been passed to the team working on this topic for consideration as part of the consultation exercise,” the spokesperson added.
Skepticism: Dan Waugh from Regulus suggested the new consultation was “unusual” in that it presents no evidence in support of the regulatory change proposed and “no real rationale for it”.
“The fact that the questions [asked by C+M] appear not to have even been considered by the regulator is pretty baffling,” he added.
He argued that although there was some sense in licensees routinely informing the regulator if a customer dies by suicide, the proposal that each case should be investigated for possible regulatory failings is “far more complicated”.
“It may suggest that the Commission sees itself as a sort of coroner – one with an unhelpful case of tunnel vision,” he said.
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GREO grants
Funding: The Gambling-Related Suicide Research Programme has launched two grant opportunities, which it says will “fund research in the UK that will improve our understanding of the links between gambling and suicide”.
The Canada-based GREO said it is looking to finance “innovative proposals from a funding envelope of £350,000 over a two-year term”.
The funding is believed to have been provided by the UK Gambling Commission.
Remit: GREO said research could include secondary analyses of high-quality datasets to “assess the relationship between gambling and suicide, self-harm or suicidal ideation” and foundational work with datasets to “improve the detection and/or understanding of gambling involvement among people who died by suicide, engaged in self-harm behaviour or contemplated suicide”.
Analyses of player data has “great potential to provide valuable insight into the association between gambling and suicide, self-harm or suicidal ideation”.
PG hoohah
You say tomato: Differing interpretations of the latest data on problem gambling rates in the UK provided the latest flashpoint between the UKGC and the Betting and Gaming Council.
The latest participation data showed the rate at 0.2% versus 0.3% a year earlier.
The UKGC termed that “statistically stable”, while the CEO of the Betting and Gaming Council said they demonstrated that problem gambling rates had “fallen again”.
Meanwhile, the increased moderate rate risk, which rose to 1.3% from 0.8%, was termed as “significant” by the Commission.
The Gambling Files weighed into the debate yesterday.
Further reading: UK gambling groups braced for sweeping reforms to protect customers.
Ad breaks
Massachusetts is making life difficult for gambling affiliates.
Strange bedfellows: Three of the major affiliate players in the US – Catena Media, Better Collective and Gambling.com Group – banded together during a roundtable hearing with the Massachusetts regulators.
The coordinated effort is a response to a section in MA regulation 256:
“No sports-wagering operator may enter into an agreement with a third party to conduct advertising, marketing or branding on behalf of, or to the benefit of, the licensee when compensation is dependent on, or related to, the volume of patrons or wagers placed, or the outcome of wagers.”
Scramble: The rule has left affiliates scrambling, with at least one operator, Caesars, deciding not to work with affiliates under the existing rule. In a letter to affiliates presented at the roundtable, Caesars wrote:
“As a result [of MA rules] we are not planning on working with affiliates on any sort of revenue model under the current regulations.”
The good news is, the MGC is likely to allow affiliates into the market.
Sympathetic ears: MGC commissioners were sympathetic to the affiliate argument, which highlighted two critical points:
30% of online registrations are via affiliate marketing websites, per Jeff Ifrah of Ifrah Law and IDEA Growth.
Affiliate marketing targets specific keywords and phrases aimed at consumers actively seeking betting options.
One of the key issues is revenue sharing vis-à-vis CPA deals. The MGC appeared far more comfortable with the latter, although several compromises were bandied about, including Commissioner Eilleen O’Brien suggesting a cap on revenue-sharing agreements.
Affiliates made a case for a hybrid approach that allows both CPA and revenue sharing. That said, the group made it clear they could live with CPA-only, which helps demonstrate how tenuous the situation is.
Reap what you sow: During the roundtable, Catena CEO Michael Daly explained that a market like Connecticut, devoid of affiliates, would be a boon for offshore operators down the road.
Affiliates pre-seed markets for months and years leading up to a launch, Daly told the MGC. Even when the purse strings are closed, those investments will still appear in Google results for quite some time.
“We made heavy investments into Connecticut at the early stages. We start to position, years ahead in some cases, with the education side of our sites.”
“There’s a pullback now there [Connecticut] because we’re not dedicating resources or writing new content.”
Over time, licensed affiliates such as Catena will fall down search results, leaving a vacuum for offshore operators.
Copycats: On the same day as the Massachusetts roundtable, the New York Gaming Commission unanimously approved proposed marketing rules that include near-identical language on third-party affiliates. The rules are now in a 60-day public comment period.
ANJ skewers FDJ
The French gambling regulator has given monopoly operator La Française des Jeux (FDJ) a month to revise its advertising strategy for 2023 after rejecting its first proposals.
What they said: The National Gaming Authority (ANJ) questioned FDJ’s lottery promotions, stating they are not “measured and limited” enough and ordered the operator to “de-intensify” advertising all media channels, including digital.
What they meant: The ads are too flashy and enticing to young and vulnerable punters, and there’s too many of them.
So frantically hectic: FDJ had planned a blitz of large-scale promotional, institutional and sponsorship campaigns of bonuses, slogans and special offers.
The “significant and continuous advertising exposure” aimed to make the lottery a mainstream, everyday product for consumers.
FDJ was singled out due to its “specific status”, but the message should be absorbed by the rest of the sector, legal experts told C+M.
“ANJ is looking for stricter rules and more control by all licensed operators,” said Diane Mullenex, French gaming expert and partner at Pinsent Masons.
Please don’t let me be misunderstood: ANJ cautioned on positioning (read: encouraging) betting as a way to help society, given the monopolies’ proceeds are often used to renovate historic buildings, finance sport or improve public parks.
The regulator is concerned a direct link between betting and public funding could “trivialize or generalize” gambling.
All other French operators were given a pass for complying with the regulations that require advertising and promotional plans for the year ahead to be rubber-stamped by the regulator.
Play it cool, guys: While their campaigns were given a pass, the country’s online operators were put on notice by ANJ that a planned 6% increase in ad spend in a year without major sporting events would be monitored.
The ANJ said it would propose “additional advertising measures” to the monopolies in the near future.
C+M reported previously that ANJ was preparing to call on the government to introduce tougher ad rules in the coming months.
Whistle-to-whistle restrictions and more powers to curb influencers are set to be recommended, among other restrictive proposals, according to the ANJ’s chairwoman Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin.
Crypto regulation
High-profile crypto collapses causes regulators to act.
The spectacular collapse of big name crypto operators such as FTX, Three Arrows Capital, Terra, Voyager Digital and Celsius has forced regulators around the world into action, with three markedly different approaches emerging in recent weeks.
Big cap diary: Hong Kong last week proposed a licensing scheme for exchanges to deal in “large cap tokens” (read: Bitcoin and Ether), in contrast to mainland China’s outright ban on crypto trading and reversing its own negative stance in 2021.
Crypto businesses have been exiting Hong Kong in droves as other jurisdictions open up, prompting the region’s financial secretary Paul Chan to plead with them to come back, having noted the “golden opportunity” in Web3.
A task force is to be established that will take guidance from the market and other regulators in hopes of developing a responsible framework for crypto to flourish.
Muh freedoms: That same day over in the US (Feb 22), Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer introduced a bill that would bar the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) directly to individuals. Emmer said CBDCs would lessen Americans’ rights to financial privacy
A high-profile crypto crackdown from the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission this year has sent the message that the US favors ‘regulation by enforcement’, at least in the short term.
The SEC has celebrities such as Kim Kardashain and sports stars who have shilled digital tokens in its crosshairs.
NBA Hall of Famer Paul Pierce agreed to pay $1.4m to make a case go away last week after he promoted EthereumMax (EMAX) tokens without revealing he’d pocketed $244,000.
You dropped a bomb on me: The day after Emmer’s bill dropped, the Federal Reserve and other agencies, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), reminded banks that exposure to crypto is a bad thing.
However, their joint statement added banks “are neither prohibited nor discouraged from providing banking services to customers of any specific class or type, as permitted by law or regulation”.
“We’re feeling a crypto carpet-bombing moment,” said Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association. “We think it’s bad for US competitiveness.”
Friendly lawmakers agree. “The European Union’s ahead of us. Switzerland’s ahead of us. Australia’s ahead of us. England’s ahead of us. So it’s not just second- and third-world countries,” said pro-Bitcoin senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), who has drafted her own market-friendly crypto regulation bill.
While you were sleeping: Skepticism that the EU can take advantage of US indecisiveness remains. “Crypto, it’s not like it provides that many jobs,” anti-crypto Senate Banking Committee chair Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “Companies always threaten to offshore when they’re gaming the system.”
Strong and stable: In Canada that very same day, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA), which comprises securities regulators from each of the country’s 10 provinces and three territories, practiced regulation by guidance.
It published a list of new compliance requirements for crypto businesses and traders, including a ban on ‘Value Referenced Crypto Assets’, which are stablecoins, without the CSA’s prior written consent.
To comply, issuers need to ensure that the stablecoin is backed with the hard stuff, real cash.
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LatAm notebook
Brazil: The executive and legislative branches of Brazil’s government are discussing a proposal to regulate sports-betting sites, according to CNN Brazil.
Newslines
betPARX has joined the International Betting Integrity Association.
Videoslots is challenging a €9.9m fine from the Dutch regulator, which had claimed the regulator’s logo was used unlawfully on its website.
The Czech finance ministry has announced it plans to change the way the government taxes gambling, as it seeks to close a budget deficit.
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