The UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is launching a review of the country’s Gambling Act of 2005. It’s a move that’s been spoken of for years, but has never really picked up traction. Regardless, UK-facing gambling operators are nervous about what the DCMS has in store for their future.
When the Gambling Act of 2005 was first put to into law back in 2007, the world of online gambling was a very different place. For starters, 2007 was also the year that the first commercially available smart phones found their way into the consumer market. So from the get-go, the Act was behind the times. The past 13 years have also seen explosive growth in other technologies that have made gambling in private a whole lot easier.
Not surprisingly, this has led to some serious growth in online gambling and problem gambling. Since 2012, the total percentage of problem gamblers in the UK has risen from 0.9 percent of the population to 1.6 percent of the population. That’s led lawmakers to clamp down on operators in some pretty significant ways, including a reduction of the maximum stake for slot machine bets from £100 to £2 for land-based operators.
In this latest review, online gambling operators can expect some serious scrutiny if the words of ex-deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, who is advising the review are any indication. “It makes no sense that stake limits for physical machines are enshrined in law, yet there is no equivalent for online gambling,” he told the Times of Malta recently.
Though gambling operators can expect some sort of major change to come out of the review, they can also rest easy knowing their business is relatively safe. Lawmakers rely on gambling tax revenue to fund public services members of the review board have already said that they want to keep the “freedom to gamble” for UK residents.