The UK's Secretary for Culture, Media, and Sport, Lucy Frazer, made an announcement about the Gambling White Paper at the House of Commons on Thursday, April 27. According to reports, the White Paper represents the most significant change to gambling law to date. It is the outcome of a protracted gambling review that started in 2020.
While there has been much discussion about how proposals will affect operators and players, little has been said about how upcoming legislative changes will affect UK aggregators. Aggregators contribute billions of pounds to the UK economy and thousands of jobs, so how they react to these changes is crucial.
The UK betting aggregator www.freebets.ltd.uk has praised the eagerly awaited White Paper as "fair" and "in line with the thinking of both industry and consumers" in response to Frazer's announcements.
What was covered in the White Paper?
The Gambling Commission's emphasis on affordability checks, a required levy for operators, and youth protection was to be expected. The elimination of gambling promotions, which had been alluded to in draft proposals, received no attention. Authorities want to make sure betting offers are fair and not being marketed to the vulnerable, so they are focusing on how such offers are promoted.
The White Paper states:
"The Gambling Commission has recently strengthened restrictions on online VIP schemes to make sure they are not used to exploit gamblers, and has introduced rules to stop bonus offers and other marketing being targeted at people showing significant indicators of harm. It will now take forward work to review the design and targeting of incentives such as free bets and bonuses to ensure there are clear rules and fair limits on re-wagering requirements and time limits so they do not encourage excessive or harmful gambling."
Abbey Moses, Head of Marketing at Freebets.ltd.uk commented:
"The promotion of offers and incentives is integral to any industry. There was a great deal of concern surrounding what the government's white paper would propose on the matter of promotions, with the suggestion of free bets being removed entirely creating a considerable backlash. We were pleased to see that no suggestion of this was proposed by the Secretary for Culture. We believe the document to be incredibly fair and look forward to working with both government and private organisations to ensure the promotion of free bets via freebets.ltd.uk remains responsible."
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