UKGC Reveals New Standards for Consumer Complaints
Published October 10, 2018 by Mike P
Details have emerged as to what UK gambling operators can expect from the forthcoming October 2018 changes being made to consumer complaints.
The first week of October 2018 began with the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) publishing the set of standards that alternative dispute resolution (ADR) providers will be required to adhere to. The various standards are scheduled to come into enforcement in the UK iGaming industry as of 31 October 2018.
Change Coming in October 2018
Ian Angus of the UKGC was tasked with announcing the publication of the standards. Ultimately, the central intention is to transform the complaints process in the UK in order to make matters simpler and more streamlined for consumers. Transparency and conflicts of interest have also been cited as an important outcome to be gained from the revamp.
The UKGC has also drafted the standards to ensure that consumers are also going to benefit from fairer treatment and greater levels of protection. The organisation also wants UK-serving gambling operators to reconsider the ways in which they evaluate evidence presented by consumers during the complaints procedure.
Moving forward, ADR providers will find that the standards have drawn heavily from the UK’s Ombudsmen Association. More specifically, the association has six principles of good governance that are to be used moving forward, including independence, openness and transparency, accountability, integrity, clarity of purpose, and effectiveness.
Past Structure
In recent years, the landscape of the UK gambling industry functioned in relation tor ADRs and consumer complaints by utilising the UKGC’s licence conditions and codes of practice. Beyond that, a key piece of legislation was the Alternative Dispute Resolution for Consumer Disputes Regulation 2015, which has been heavily used in the past.
However, it was in 2017 that the UKGC embarked upon an evaluation of the ADR process, whereby the organisation was then able to draw up the changes that are coming into force on 31 October, having resisted major change in the area for a number of years.
Moving forward, the UK gambling industry should soon be more precisely equipped to handle anywhere from basic to complex consumer complaints. Previous criticisms of the process had been that ADR was vague and imprecise in relation to gambling. Providers will now move forward with the process needed to comply with the new changes.
