Recent data collected by the independent data and public opinion company, YouGov, as well as the regulatory watchdog, the UK Gambling Commission, reveal in this collected research that the majority of UK players lack trust in casino operators.

What questions were asked in these surveys?

In terms of the questions that were asked in these surveys about public opinion on online casinos, these included questions in the YouGov survey such as:

• Do you support the decrease of a maximum stake at FOBTs from £100 to £2?
• How serious are gambling companies when they say they want their players to gamble responsibly?
• Do you support prepositions to limit the spending, stakes and speed one can gamble at online casinos?

How were the gambling surveys conducted?

The surveys, carried out and published separately by these two authorities, showed very similar results in terms of the lack of confidence in online casinos in the UK, especially in terms of responsible gambling, maximum stakes and use of casino bonuses.

This is despite the fact the surveys that each authorities undertook varied considerably in terms of the groups of respondents they surveyed, as well as the time and scale of the surveys.

For example, one survey strictly surveyed gamblers in the UK, whilst the other included those who didn’t gamble at all either. One survey only involved the participation of 1000 gamblers, whilst the other included considerably more respondents overall.

What was the conclusion of these surveys?

Nevertheless, despite these individual surveys being quite different from one another, they both revealed similar results. For example, approximately 70% of all gamblers do not trust casino operators in the UK.

This far from good news for the UK’s casino operators, especially for the online gambling industry: as there has been a variety of new measures implemented in recent years in order to help better ensure the player’s safety online. Unfortunately, public opinion has yet to catch up on this.

Other outcomes of the survey included that:

• Only 9% of people surveyed opposed the reduction of a maximum stake in physical betting terminals in the UK.
• When it came to online casinos and maximum stakes, only 19% opposed similar limits.
• Only 26% of those surveyed believed communication of online casinos were truthful.
• 71% of respondents stated that they did not believe casinos took promoting responsible gambling seriously enough.

Overall, 80% agreed that there should be stricter regulation of gambling options online and offline…

This post was written by Tudor Lodge Consultants