February 7, 2019

Following an open consultation, the Gambling Commission has today announced new rules which will come into force on 7 May 2019.  Online operators will be required to enhance their verification process, as well as ensuring they are carried out in a timelier manner.

The new rules require remote 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.

It is hoped that these changes will help operators prevent harm or detect criminal activity at a quicker rate as a result of them holding more information about their customers.

As well as preventing the risk of underage gambling through a stricter verification process, the Gambling Commission hopes that the new rules will increase the likelihood that someone will be identified if they attempt to gamble while self-excluded.  This is because effective verification by operators will mean that a customer will not be verified, and therefore unable to gamble, until they provide correct details. These details will then be checked against both the operator’s own self-exclusion database and the verified data held by Gamstop.

You can read more about this here.