A New UKGC Report Dissects Casino Complaints

A new UKGC report has found that misleading advertisements/promotions are the leading reason for complaints against online betting operators. (Image by mohamed_hassan on pixabay.com)

The UK Gambling Commission has recently released a report detailing statistics about the consumer complaints it receives regarding online gambling. The most revealing aspect of this report is that the regulator receives more complaints concerning misleading ads than it does for anything else.

Misleading ads surprisingly edged out other reasons including incorrect bet settlements, non-payment of winnings, and being unable to withdraw funds as reasons for complaints.

In the new UKGC report, the commission shows how they collect and handle consumer complaints data and how they use it to shape their policies going forward. The commission collected the data for the report using its Online Tracker (Quantitative Survey Data), via Consumer Voice Research (Qualitative Research via 2CV), and from Industry Data collected from online operators.

After analysing the data, the commission found that of those that had gambled in the last 12-months, only 8% had ever made an official complaint while a further 4% claimed they wanted to but didn’t. That left 88% who had never had a reason to complain. The largest share of complainants was male (73%) and between the age of 25-34 (33%). The report also investigated the reasons why so few had complained, with many citing it was not worth the bother or they had little confidence they would get a satisfactory outcome. Others complained that the complaints procedure at some online casinos was confusing or complicated.

However, the most interesting statistic was the reasoning behind the complaints. As you will see from the graph below, 16% of all complaints for the year up to December 2020, were regarding misleading promotions/ads. This reason edged out incorrect bet settlements (15%), non-payment of winnings (14%), and unable to withdraw funds (12%).

UKGC Complaints Data Graph

In total, there were 132,862 complaints up to December 2020. That figure is down 14.4% on the year before. 9,342 of those complaints were made directly to the UKGC while 5,617 of the total complaints received, were escalated to dispute resolution services. 3,118 of those sent to resolution services were resolved in favour of the player compared to 2,499 that were refused.

The UKGC Also Provides Update on Participation and Prevalence Research Consultation

In other UKGC-related news, the commission has provided an update regarding its Participation and Prevalence Research Consultation. Earlier in the year, the commission revealed they were looking at ways to improve how it collected statistics regarding adult gambling participation and prevalence. The UK’s gambling regulatory body is now ready to move onto the next phase of the pilot which will run from October 2021 until March 2023.

The UKGC has established a consortium of research partners to help to develop and test a new method for collecting participation and prevalence statistics. The consortium is made up of people from NatGen Social Research and the University of Glasgow. Participants during the pilot will now take online surveys that the UKGC hopes will prove successful come to the end of the pilot. The commission claims that once all data has been analysed and the pilot is complete, it will consider actions for the next stage.

The hope is that should the pilot prove successful, the commission can continue to develop the new methodology and use it on a continual basis. The data collected will allow the UKGC to quickly identify emerging trends and act accordingly.

The UKGC regulates gambling in the UK and is renowned as the strictest regulator in the industry. The commission regularly hands out fines and suspends licenses if an operator is deemed to have broken any rules and regulations. Just recently, the Commission suspended the license of BGO Entertainment Ltd.

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