Key points:
- The Gambling Commission's frictionless financial risk assessment pilot is in its second stage
- Director of Major Policy Projects Helen Rhodes gave her insights on the project so far and what has been learnt
The Gambling Commission in the UK (GC) has published an additional update regarding its financial risk assessment pilot.
Helen Rhodes, Director of Major Policy Projects, provided information on the second stage of the pilot, which was first announced in May last year, and plans for the final stages of the project pilot.
As outlined by the GC, financial risk assessments are ‘a proposed way of identifying high-spending remote gambling customers who may be in financial difficulties, in order to help support them.’ This, the GC clarifies, is different to a typical affordability check, as the GC is not required under regulation to perform these. These risk assessments are expected to be a more targeted solution for identifying customers at risk yet will not impact player credit scores.
Rhodes goes over seven key points in her publication. The first notes the GC’s keen watch over the pilot and assessments on its ability to support vulnerable customers, and how it would go about approaching players when needed. The pilot has not gone live yet, and is currently being tested in three stages.
Second, Rhodes notes that in the current, second stage of the pilot, 1.7 million financial risk assessments were conducted across three agencies, relating to 860,000 player accounts.
Good to know: The GC recently cracked down on illegal football sponsorships. TGP Europe, the white-label operator of BCGame.uk, duelbits.co.uk and stake.uk.com (among others) has left the UK
She later notes that, in stage one, 95% of assessments were possible and frictionless (a key part of the risk assessment), while in stage two this increased to 97%; higher than the 80% estimated by the White Paper in 2023. Indeed, 3% of assessments at stage two could not be matched, with this decrease likely due to the recency of the data used.
With this information, Rhodes estimates that 0.1%, or 1 in 1,000 customers, would meet the requirements to undergo a frictionless financial risk assessment. The GC is also gaining a greater understanding of those at risk, with those meeting risk assessment criteria also being likely to have been flagged already by operators and being more likely to have a debt management plan or to have a default than the average UK adult.
NatCen continues to evaluate the pilot. On the results, Rhodes said: “These further findings from the pilot have helped us understand the extent that assessments could be conducted in a frictionless manner.
“Building on our staged approach to the pilot, we will now further explore data consistency across credit reference agencies, as well as how to support operators to identify the severity of financial difficulties that a customer may be experiencing and how they could support these customers.”
