Social responsibility - the legal position
The Gambling Act 2005 sets out the requirement for licensees to observe any codes of practice issued by the Gambling Commission.
The Gambling Commission’s principal code of practice contains both general provisions and social responsibility provisions and came into force on 1 September 2007.
General Provisions
The general provisions relate to such matters as money laundering, employment of children and young persons and money lending between customers. Any breach of these provisions may be taken into account in any subsequent civil, criminal or regulatory proceedings.
Social Responsibility Provisions
The social responsibility provisions of the code have a special status. Any beach of any provision will amount to a breach of an operator’s licence and will therefore be a criminal offence. Any operator found guilty of such an offence may be sentenced to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks, a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (presently £5,000) or both. It will be a matter for the Commission as to whether to institute criminal, civil and/or regulatory proceedings.
The social responsibility provisions require licensees, for example, to:
> put into effect policies and procedures intended to promote socially responsible gambling
> make information readily available to their customers on how to gamble responsibly and how to access information about and help in respect of problem gambling
> implement policies and procedures for customer interaction where they have concerns that a customer’s behaviour may indicate problem gambling
> put in place procedures for self-exclusion and take all reasonable steps to refuse service or to otherwise prevent an individual who has entered a self-exclusion agreement from participating in gambling
> be able to provide evidence to the Gambling Commission, if required, showing how they satisfied themselves that their terms of business are not unfair.
The above list is just a sample of the social responsibility provisions – there are numerous others, many of which are sector specific. For example,
> casino licensees must have policies and procedures in place designed to ensure that proper supervision of gaming at tables is carried out by supervisors, pit bosses and croupiers to prevent overcrowding or jostling of players
> remote gambling operators must ensure that they not only warn potential customers that underage gambling is an offence but that they require customers to affirm that they are of legal age and must use the best publicly available information for age verification purposes from whichever country the potential customer is resident in
> betting licensees must publish rules which cover, for example, the circumstances under which the operator will void a bet and the treatment of errors, late bets and related contingencies.
The full Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice can be found here