Yesterday the CMA released an update on their investigation into online gambling and the unfair practices we are all too familiar with. The entire update can be found over at: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/online-gambling-the-investigation-so-far-and-next-steps

Some of the interesting points I picked up on:

Customers typically open accounts, deposit money, and then enter into a series of interactions with the gaming operator, often within the framework of a particular promotion. This means that the consumer can potentially experience a number of restrictions and limitations on their gameplay and wider behaviour which they would not experience in other gambling contexts (most notably ‘one off’ stakes placed in a high street shop). Such restrictions can potentially extend to their ability to withdraw winnings and deposits, and these have been the particular focus of our investigation.

Here the CMA is putting focus on deposit offers where you will ‘Deposit £x to get an extra y% bonus”. The issue they appear to be having is that your deposit is ‘locked in’ with the bonus money. The CMA is arguing that a customer should be able to withdraw their deposit and any winnings specifically obtained from the deposit money without going through any wagering requirements if they have not yet touched the bonus money. This makes perfect sense, afterall; if the bookie is using your own cash first then it makes sense that you should be able to walk away from the bonus if it has been untouched. A small number of online casino sites already let you do this but it should be extended to all.

 

The ordinary position that would apply, absent the terms of a promotion, is that a consumer is legally entitled to winnings obtained through play with their own funds as an enforceable debt.

The CMA has highlighted that this practice of locking in winnings from customer deposit funds may actually be breaking the law and the customer could demand the return of their deposit and winnings as an enforceable debt.

 

Examples of significant restrictions that we found were not being properly flagged to consumers included:

• that play restrictions applied to their gameplay, in some cases resulting in the forfeiture of consumers’ entire winnings

An obvious one here, many offers have en entire page of small print terms with ridiculous restrictions such as “Must not bet more than £x amount in a single spin” and a huge excluded slots list. God help you if you so much as do a single spin on Bloodsuckers.. they will use that as an excuse to confiscate your entire winnings and often keep the deposited money too. This is outright theft in my opinion and it seems the CMA agrees.

 

• where multiple bonuses were offered simultaneously, that the interaction of these bonuses had an impact on how wagering requirements would be met and on other aspects of promotional play

One of the most annoying things to happen is you finish wagering on an offer only to realise an old offer had kept its wagering on your account and you had been contributing to that instead. Customer Support will offer no sympathy in this case meaning you are then left having to do extra wagering for no reason.

 

We extended the scope of our investigation to examine 2 particular issues that we encountered relating to the offer of such free bets:

• Where operators may remove a consumer’s entitlement to a free bet, despite the customer having placed all or some of the necessary qualifying bets required under that promotion.
• Where consumers are informed, after placing all or some of the qualifying bets, that a restriction is being imposed on them which may either (i) make it harder to complete the remaining qualifying bets or (ii) reduce the value of the free bet they ultimately receive

.. it is not appropriate to unilaterally remove or alter their obligations to provide the substantive benefits promised under the contract.

This further supports the IBAS statement that ‘where a customer fulfills the requirements of a promotion before communication of restriction they must then be allowed to complete the offer’. Often a book maker will seek to gub you after you’ve placed the qualifying bet but before using up the free bet. Particularly disturbing is that many categorically state that any unused bonus funds/free bets will be removed from your account with immediate affect. Clearly this is unfair and I’m glad to see that the CMA supports my opinion.

 

Operators need to ensure they honour the deals that they make available to consumers (particularly where they have been directly targeted by marketing activity), ensuring that they meet expectations and treat their customers fairly. This is best and most clearly achieved by not seeking to enforce account restrictions that would either remove a consumer’s entitlement to a bet, or reduce its value, where a consumer has already placed all or some of the qualifying bets under the promotion. So this is the approach we think operators should generally adopt to address this concern

Could not have said it better myself.

Update:

It looks like at least one bookmakers has started taking proactive action as a result of this investigation. A MBG reader has forwarded me the following message they received from Toals. Here’s hoping the other bookies follow suit.