Britain’s major betting operators and the independent members of the
ABBcontinue to make significant investment in independent age verification and are reaching the highest standards in the retail sector.
However, new claims from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling on the betting industry and age verification misrepresent a recent press release from the Gambling Commission whose testing only covered small operators – totally discounting the 80% of the industry who are members of the Association of British Bookmakers.
These operators, with 8,000-odd shops among them, have all signed up to the
ABB Code for Responsible Gamblingwhich dictates stringent minimum standards on Age Verification and independent testing. The pass rate for this testing has risen from around 60% to 80% compliance since the code was introduced last year.
The Gambling Commission’s latest round of underage gambling test purchasing conducted by local authorities confusingly stated that “many operators” have inadequate controls for preventing underage gambling.
The report said that in 20 out of 40 tests of adult gaming centres and betting shops, a supervised test purchaser under the age of 18 was allowed to play on a gaming machine and leave the premises without being challenged to prove their age.
However, the Gambling Commission press release itself conceded: “The large betting and adult gaming centres were not included in this programme as they employ third-party contractors to carry out effective test purchasing and make the result available to the Commission.
“This round of test purchasing also excluded operators that are members of a trade association that has a robust test purchasing scheme to test its members’ gambling premises via a third-party provider.”
It is believed the test purchase figures released by the Commission only included failures from 3 independent bookmakers.
Major betting operators invest significant sums in rolling test purchase programmes to ensure its ‘Think21’ policies are applied effectively and are seeing positive results that outscore other retail sectors.
The real facts on AV testing are that Association of British Bookmaker members, which include the leading chains and independent members are now regularly scoring over 80 per cent, and in the latest round of AV testing have hit 100%.
Ladbrokes spokesman Ciaran O’Brien commented: “The evidence is clear that the betting industry takes age verification extremely seriously and puts its money where its mouth is.
“We are seeing very high results, and we continue to invest in staff training and testing as part of an ongoing process. If staff persist to show weakness in this area they face the ultimate sanction and are sacked.
“We don’t want underage people in our shops. With the use of AV testing, CCTV and other tools we will continue to ensure the betting industry is at the forefront of age verification – so much so that we even fund testing of independent ABB members.”