Study: UK Gambling Companies Putting Customers at Risk of Harm
A study from the Behavioural Insights Team has found UK operators are putting customers at “higher risk” of harm. The company analysed ten operators, recorded the customer’s journey and found multiple failings in customer welfare.
Audit Shows Operators Customer Welfare Failings © Pixabay.
A new study conducted by The Gambling Policy & Research Unit of the Behavioural Insights Team has revealed that the most popular online gambling companies are failing to protect customers from experiencing gambling-related harm.
The Behavioural Insights Team checked the following companies: 888, Betfair, Betfred, Betway, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Tombola and William Hill/William Hill Vegas.
In the Behavioural Risk Audit, the company reviewed eight aspects of a typical user journey, from opening an account to closing it. The research was broken down into seven key areas.
Step One – Landing Page – Reviewing the landing page of the gambling site. How are you encouraged to create an account? What offers are you shown? Is there restricted content without an account?
Step Two – Sign up process – Creating an account and depositing money. How easy is it to sign up for an account? Does cross-selling occur? How is gambling harm and the support available for this introduced to customers?
Step Three – Gambling management information – Auditing the access to gambling management information and the pages that include the information. How accessible are gambling management tools? What range of tools are there? How are consumers encouraged (or discouraged) to take up gambling management tools?
Step Four – Gameplay – They played and audited slot games, blackjack and other related games. What does it feel like to gamble? Do sites make it attractive to bet for longer or to bet more money? Are gambling management tools suggested before/during/after play?
Step Five – Betting – They placed three different bets on auditing the sports betting process.
Step Six – Gambling management tool setup – Setting up a variety of gambling management tools. What is the range and frequency of communications sent? Do the nature of communications change post-gameplay?
Step Seven – Withdrawal and closure – They withdrew their money and closed our account. How easy is it to close an account and to withdraw funds?
The key findings of the Behavioural Insights Team study were that operators were failing to prevent gambling-related harm. In some instances, they “actually put them at higher risk of gambling harms”.
The audit highlighted several areas of concern. For example, they found it took much longer to close an account than it did to create one, and in one instance, researchers were sent a welcome email before the registration process was complete (Tombola).
The research highlighted that several sites have a minimum account balance that was needed before a customer could close their account. This restriction could force a customer to continue gambling until that minimum amount was gained.
Many operators show default quick deposit limits, which were more than the minimum deposit amount, which the researchers believe would encourage to “follow the path of the least resistance” and use the pre-defined amount.
The study also found that age verification often didn’t take place, allowing visitors to access content which should have been behind a verification wall.
The audit also found that losses were often presented as a win. For example, a customer pays £1 for a spin, and a message of “Won 50p” appears, which could make the customer think they had won 50p when in reality they had lost 50p.
The report’s final finding was that time pressure was often exerted on players with a timer countdown being displayed and flashing icons to encourage quicker play.
Dr David Halpern, CEO of BIT, said there were plenty of opportunities for operators to make changes that would reduce the risk of gambling-related harm. However, he said that this “doesn’t seem to be the priority” for operators.
Halpern 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.”
You can read the full Behavioural Risk Audit of Gambling Operator Platforms via The Behavioural Insights Team website.
