Gambling

(asked on 10th May 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether (a) the Gambling Commission and (b) officials in her Department have met providers of online gambling affordability checks technology for the purposes of understanding the potential merits of alternative approaches to the single customer view project.


Answered by
Chris Philp Portrait
Chris Philp
Minister of State (Home Office)
This question was answered on 17th May 2022

The Government and Gambling Commission are exploring how technology and data can be harnessed in a number of areas to better prevent harmful gambling online. We recognise the role that data sharing could play in supporting interventions across multiple operators, as well as the benefits of considering a player’s financial circumstances as part of a rounded assessment of whether they are at risk of harm. The government’s white paper on the Gambling Act Review will be published in the coming weeks.

It is important that any data-driven protections are proportionate, handle data securely, and are implemented in a way that is acceptable to consumers. Officials from the Department and the Commission have therefore met a range of technology providers to understand potential delivery options, including those which may cause less friction in the customer journey such as checks facilitated by open banking.

The Single Customer View project is currently in a pilot stage with GAMSTOP, which operates the national online self-exclusion scheme, as technical provider. This is taking place within the Information Commissioner’s Office regulatory sandbox, and progress will be closely monitored by Government and regulators. There will be ongoing evaluations once data sharing has started. The Gambling Commission’s most recent update surrounding progress and next steps can be found here, and the Information Commissioner’s update on the sandbox can be found here.

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