The Gambling Commission recently announced widespread changes to increase safety and customer choice.

The changes, consistent with the government’s white paper ‘High stakes: gambling reform for the digital age’, include reducing the intensity of online games, improving consumer choice over receiving gambling marketing, light-touch financial vulnerability checks and tightening processes to support age verification checks in premises.

They also include a careful approach to implementation with the changes to be implemented in four stages: August 2024, November 2024, January 2025 and February 2025.

Having listened to consumers, the commission will conduct a pilot of frictionless financial risk assessments aimed at preventing cases where customers were able to spend large amounts in short spaces of time without any checks, resulting in significant gambling harm.

Consumers will not be affected during a pilot period, so the commission can refine the data-sharing processes before the assessments are rolled out in a live environment.

Andrew Rhodes, Gambling Commission CEO, said, “As a gambling regulator, it’s vital that the introduction of new rules is based on evidence and takes into account the views of consumers and other interested parties.

“We have listened to the views expressed in our engagement and in the consultation responses, and we have made changes while still ensuring that we deliver meaningful protections.”

Rhodes added, “We are also pleased to be taking forward a pilot of financial risk assessments and data collection, which together will ensure that we can make informed decisions about how these assessments can be implemented in a way that supports both consumer freedom and protections.

“We have to get the balance right between protecting people from the potentially life-ruining effects of gambling-related harm and respecting the freedom of adults to engage in an activity that the vast majority do so without experiencing harm.”

The commission pilot is expected to last six months. Following the pilot, the commission will decide whether permanent rules will be implemented, but this will not be done until data sharing is frictionless for the vast majority of customers who are checked.