GamCare revamps its Corporate Standard on operator duties

GamCare has called on industry incumbents to adopt its newly revised ‘Safer Gambling Standard’ (2021 revision) with regards to operating their social responsibility duties and corporate conduct.

The problem gambling treatment support charity has revised its corporate standard to better review the policies, procedures, systems and controls of licensed UK gambling operators.

GamCare’s revised requirements cover 10 critical areas, deemed fundamental for operators to maintain an effective safer gambling approach with customers –  

• Corporate governance and risk management
• Collaboration and sharing best practice
• Spend on safer gambling
• Protection of children and vulnerable adults
• Customer information, profiling, and interaction
• Product design, deployment, and innovation in safer gambling tools
• Self-exclusion
• Advertising and promotion
• Staff training and development
• Addressing problem gambling amongst staff

Businesses that adopt the standard will be judged on each individual area, with GamCare teams evaluating safer gambling performance on up to 58 criteria.

GamCare will provide an ‘award level’ for each participating business dependent on the evaluation of performance on critical safer gambling areas.  

“Joining the Safer Gambling Standard accreditation scheme demonstrates that your business has adopted a wide range of safer gambling measures that go beyond the social responsibility provisions of your gambling licence,” GamCare detailed in its statement.

GamCare has further launched a B2B version of its corporate standard for games developers, platform providers and further third-party services supplying the igaming sector.    

Publishing its response to the Gambling review’s call for evidence, GamCare recommended that all licensed operators promote its Safer Gambling ‘quality mark’ to signal to consumers that a business carries a dedication to customer safety and reducing gambling harms.