Study: UK gambling firms putting customers at “higher risk” of harm
Audit of almost a dozen operators by Behavioural Insights Team found multiple ways sites are detrimental to customer welfare
A new study has revealed 10 of the most popular gambling firms in the UK are reportedly failing to adequately address customer welfare.
An audit from the Behavioural Insights Team’s (BIT) Gambling Policy and Research Unit found operators such as 888, Flutter and Entain had several shortcomings in their customer protection measures.
The full list of firms the BIT unit looked into were: 888, Betfair, Betfred, Betway, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Tombola and William Hill/William Hill Vegas.
This unit performed a behavioural audit on these companies’ sites, which explored the user journey from arriving at the site through to closing an account.
The audit methodology focused on framework design, data collection, and analysis and was conducted between December 2021 and June 2022.
The key finding the group noted was that operators were not only failing to protect customer welfare, but in some instances were “actually put[ting] them at higher risk of gambling harms”.
The audit found multiple areas of concern, beginning at the registration stage. For example, it discovered that it took longer to close an account than open one, and some operators sent customers welcome emails before they had finished the registration process. The example operator shown to be doing this was Tombola.
It was also found that several sites have a minimum account balance needed before a player can withdraw funds from their account.
Multiple operators also show default quick deposit amounts, which are higher than the minimum required.
The unit thought these systems could lead to harm as customers usually take the path of least resistance, leading to the customer spending more than they can afford.
Elsewhere, a lack of age checks before registration were also present, which allowed customers on some sites to access virtual betting races without age verification.
Losses were also not made clear during gameplay, with information also sometimes misleading.
For example, when betting £0.20 and losing £0.10 with one operator, a message of ‘Won £0.10’ appeared, which could make the customer think they had won when they would clearly in reality have lost half their stake.
Lastly, the audit found that popularity claims were littered all over these sites with countdown timers and flashing icons to encourage people to bet quickly, encouraging further play than intended.
Dr David Halpern, CEO of BIT, said it was possible for operators to make adequate changes to improve customer welfare, but that it “doesn’t seem to be the priority” for firms.
He said: “Whether by design or market evolution, the overall message is loud and clear: gambling sites make it very easy to sign up, to bet, and to keep betting, but strikingly harder for users to find the tools to set reasonable limits, get their money out, or to simply leave.”
EGR has contacted the aforementioned operators for comment.