UKGC Readies For Three-Months Credit Card Restriction Talks; Full Ban Highly Unlikely

A three-month long consultation period on credit cards being potentially restricted for gambling has been commenced by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC). Initial forecasts say that a complete ban of this payment method from the gambling industry is quite unlikely.

The round of thorough talks will take place through November 6th and will see an array of opinions on credit card gambling restrictions, such spending limits or an outright prohibition of this method of payment. The entire British public as well as industry experts and high shooters are invited to give their contribution.

Something to be Concerned Abou

The comments by all of these parties will be taken into consideration and examined...

...and, moreover, they will be used alongside data gathered as part of initial call for evidence in order to decide what the optimal course of action is.

Namely, UKGC claims they're in possession of enough evidence that provides substantial grounds for their desire to ban credit cards from all forms of gambling. This evidence, they say, comes from charities and third-party organizations. In fact, some members of the public have openly criticized certain operators for accepting borrowed funds from players.

In minds of many, this is a cause for a big concern over a potential absence of safeguards.

Restrictions Better Than Ban

Providers of payment services and gaming operators are in agreement regarding the notion that a certain level of restriction could be far more effective than a complete ban...

...as those who provided this evidence claim that players, in the case of full-on ban, would use other forms of borrowing such as loans, payday lenders and others. This would mean that operators would need to resort to more intrusive checks of wealth source via -wallet or ban statements, as they would not be aware that players' funds were coming from these sources.

Also, as not all credit card users suffer from gambling related issues, it would be unfair to impose such strict rules on unsuspecting clients who do not deserve this strict measure.

Other Reasonings

Others have approved the complete ban...

...but only if an integral part of it was to prohibit the use of overdrafts and loans to fund gambling. Step Change charity organization has provided some data that conclusively proves that a lot of people have fallen into a debt via several ways of borrowing money. If restrictions only concern one form of borrowing, then those people may not feel the benefits of a ban.

However, The Money Charity is of the opinion that a credit card gambling ban must be a part of a broader set of measures, lest it will be too easily circumvented.

Some respondents to this first call for evidence were opposing any sort of change to the existing landscape. These were mostly general public and smaller remote operators. They argued that other forms of funding are way more costly than credit cards and that, also, the user should be responsible and in charge of their own borrowings once they are in a possession of a credit card.

They also think that lenders themselves should check more thoroughly what their clients can pay off realistically, which would make access to credit cards more difficult and, by default, less people would be having it which would

What is your stance on this? Should gambling see the total ban of credit cards or is this not the right path to follow? Shout it out in the comments below!

Source:

“GC launches consultation on credit card restrictions”, igamingbusiness.com, August 16, 2019.