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Protecting Children from Online Gambling: Ensuring Age Verification and Regulation

This forum discusses the importance of age verification and regulation in online gambling to protect children. It explores the current situation, the need for e-tools, and the evolving debate on whether social games should be subject to gambling regulation.

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Protecting Children from Online Gambling: Ensuring Age Verification and Regulation

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  1. “Online gambling and child protection" ICT Coalition Forum Brussels, 18 April 2013 Florian Cartoux, EGBA

  2. EGBA: Who we are • Highly regulated industry with operators holding licenses in a growing number of EU Member States • Products include online sports betting, poker and casino • Sector not harmonised, but included in growing secondary EU legislation • Maintaining high level standards

  3. At the forefront of E-commerce • Europe global leader in online gambling with 45% market share • Young industry at the forefront of digital economy • Innovation: Internet, mobile phones, tablets, digital TV • Broadband penetration: Malta example • Jobs: 1,900 working for Swedish private betting companies & 7,000 in Malta • Security: Over 20 methods of payments accepted with standard operator

  4. Underage gambling: An absolute No-No • Forms part of all national licensing requirements • 18 minimum age limit in most Member States (others 21) • Customers must provide name, age, address and unique username and password details • No advertising targeted towards underage individuals • Complemented also by self regulatory initiatives (CEN) • Links to recognised filtering programme to assist customers/parents • Account closed and refunded immediately if underage gambling is identified or suspected • Training to all employees involved in age verification • External audits

  5. Underage gambling: What is the situation today? • Limited data on the scale of the problem • 0.023% of all new customers in all countries (Unibet) • Regulated markets show high success of keeping children off online websites • “It is true that no system is ever going to be entirely foolproof but the example of gambling in the UK appears to show that some can work to a very high level of efficiency” CHIS study October 2010 • “2% of children (amongst 11-15) have ever used online gambling “ Ipsos Mori Research Institute 2011 • Regulation of online gambling guarantees transparency and traceability

  6. Age identification: How does it work? • Majority of Member States have diverging approaches: • Some check via publicly available information (UK) • Some check through fiscal codes (Italy) • Some use a mix of paper verification (France) • Others have no explicit know your customer requirements (Germany) • Need for e-tools (DK and ES) to improve efficiency of e- ID and offer • Need for EU common standards: • Directive for e-identification does not oblige MS to introduce e-ID A complete fragmented approach – No internal market

  7. Social gaming and online gambling • Main difference with online gambling: • No definition of social gaming per se • Players play for free (though 1-5% are paying players) • Players can not win money from playing or paying for the social game • Players usually under the age of 18 can play • Status of legislation: • Online gambling: Heavily regulated at national level, subject to growing EU secondary legislation • Social gaming: As information society services subject to many EU directives

  8. Should social games be subject to gambling regulation? • Growing scrutinity from gambling regulators, but no clear call for extra regulation • However, three topics may evolve the debate over time: • Age verification: Should social games be subject to same requirements as gambling operators? • Addiction: Do players on social games need player protection tools like for online gambling? • Fraud: Do players need protection from potential fraudulent business practices?

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