IBAS Interested in Gambling Ombudsman Role
The Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) is interested in becoming the UK’s new Gambling Ombudsman. The service currently deals with over 5,000 complaints a year. The organisation has 25 years of betting-related complaint handling and believes they have the ‘right tools for the job’.
IBAS Interested in Taking On Gambling Ombudsman Role © Pixabay.
The Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) has thrown its hat into the ring to become the UK’s Gambling Ombudsman.
Managing director Richard Hayler, speaking to trade publication EGR, believes ‘it’s high time’ that the UK government introduces a Gambling Ombudsman. He feels the IBAS has the correct skill set and experience to fulfil the role.
IBAS believes the nature of a Gambling Ombudsman means the role needs experience and must hit the ground running rather than “learning on the job”. IBAS deals with 80% of UK gambling complaints, and since 1998 they have dealt with over 85,000 disputes. In 2020 alone, a total of £480,000 has been returned to consumers.
IBAS is approved by the regulator, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) and is an Alternative Dispute Resolution provider as the UKGC requires all licenced operators to provide a free complaint adjudication service to consumers.
In a white paper setting out their vision if they were to become the UK’s first Gambling Ombudsman, they anticipated it would require a budget of £3.5m in the first year. £3m of this total would be for staff wages, with the remaining £500,000 set aside for operating expenses. In addition, IBAS stated they would need an additional £1m in the first year to transition from IBAS to the Ombudsman role.
These costs would be funded by a mandatory levy on the gambling industry.
When asked if IBAS was equipped to take on the role of Gambling Ombudsman, Hayler said: “Overall, I think we’re largely equipped to deliver the role well. One of the difficulties we have is that when IBAS was originally set up, it was designed to deal with relatively niche cases, and we haven’t increased internal resources proportionately or updated our structure in line with the current gambling landscape.”
“We also need to take on some additional expertise to be able to deliver everything we need and want to be, particularly in terms of looking at questions of whether or not a company has acted responsibly.”
IBIS project that it would receive around 7,5000 complaints in the first year. Of these, they expect to resolve 5,000 of them. They believe 2,000 cases would need to be referred back to operators to complete their internal complaints process. They predict 500 requests would fall outside the Gambling Ombudsman’s remit.
They estimate that the average operator cost would be £400 for each resolved complaint.
Hayler said: “I welcome the creation of a new Ombudsman, but for this to work, it needs to be run by an organisation that understands the sector and has a track record of helping and protecting consumers.
“An Ombudsman with additional resources, built on the foundations of IBAS, is best placed to hit the ground running, protecting consumers, and raising industry standards through fair, consistent decision making and constructive dispute avoidance feedback.”
The IBAS has a unique history. Journalists launched it in 1998 as there was no way at the time for consumers to complain if a bookmaker refused to pay out or if they were dissatisfied with a product or service.
It was launched almost a decade before the government introduced the Gambling Act, and back then, a bet was considered ‘gentlemen’s agreements’ and courts were often reluctant to get involved.
