Gambling - Changes to the licence conditions and codes of practice on age and identity verification for remote gambling

The Gambling Commission has now issued its consultation response following its consultation proposing changes to the licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP) on age and identity verification for remote gambling.

There are two principal changes, both proposed to take effect from 7 May 2019, as follows.

• Age Verification

Online gambling businesses have been allowed 72 hours to carry out age verification checks with the operator prohibiting customers withdrawing winnings until age verification has been completed (and returning stakes if the person is found to be underage).

The first new requirement for licensees is that they will need to verify the age of any customer before the customer can:

• deposit funds into an account;
• access any free-to-play games the licensee may make available; or
• gamble with the licensee with either their own money or a free bet or bonus.

These changes to LCCP will apply to remote betting and gaming operators, as well as lotteries (other than those lotteries that only offer subscription or low frequency lotteries)

• Identity verification

The second new licence condition will require licensees to:

• verify (as a minimum) the name, address and date of birth of a customer before allowing them to gamble;
• ask for any additional verification information promptly;
• inform customers (before they can deposit funds) of the types of identity documents or other information that might be required, the circumstances in which the information might be required and how it should be supplied to the licensee; and
• take reasonable steps to ensure that information on their customers’ identities remains accurate.

Again, this new licence condition will apply to remote betting and gaming operators, as well as lotteries (other than those lotteries that only offer subscription or low frequency lotteries).

Further details of the new requirements and consultation responses can be found here

The Gambling Commission will also be launching a consultation on plans to make explicit their expectations about how to interact with a customer who may be experiencing gambling-related harm and calling for evidence on the use of gambling blocking software.