Responsible Gambling Features: Are Casinos Doing Enough?

After putting your credentials on the Vulkan Vegas login page, can you say that casinos are doing enough to help you become a responsible gamer? While there are laws or precautions in place, some people say that it is not enough.

These features are tools that casinos use to help gamblers fight addiction if it appears. They are mostly mandatory and must be visible and easily accessible to users. Some examples include:

● Self-exclusion – a feature where a player can list themselves to be excluded. If the player does this, they can no longer access the casino. Essentially, it is a self-ban. It helps gambling addicts stay away from casino sites. If they cannot play, there is no way for them to relapse and lose money.

● Spending limits – limits on how much a player can spend, deposit, or bet. With this tool, the gambler can control how much money they can allocate for gambling per week or month. It is the gambler who sets this limit for themselves. The goal is to control losses and ultimately prevent heavy and destructive financial losses.

● Time-out – it is a time limit imposed on a player, which is also initiated by them. For example, the player can limit himself to only one hour of gambling per day.

Some casinos have what’s called a ‘reality check.’ This check is an email, which they send to the gamer. What it contains is information about the player’s habits. For example, it has gambling time and money spent.

Many gamblers do not seem to realize that they spend so much time and money on casino games until you tell them. The reality check is a great addition to the arsenal of tools that can help gamblers realize their addiction and start working on it.

Well, there are some things that casinos can do, and below are some suggestions.

1. Accessibility and Awareness

One thing that many gambling sites can do is to improve the visibility of these features. If you observe closely, online gaming platforms put responsible gaming features at the bottom of their websites. They are barely visible.

Gamblers do not actively seek responsible gaming features. Because of this, many of them are not even aware that this is an option. Casinos should take steps to make the self-exclusion more visible.

The problem is that this may take business away from a casino. Of course, their priority is to make a gambler bet as much money as possible. After all, it is how casinos earn. Perhaps, legislation to make the features more visible is necessary.

2. Enforcement of Self-Exclusion

Although most casinos have this feature, they do not enforce it strictly. How so? Well, players can easily bypass this feature if they feel like playing again.

Self-excluded players can create a new account. Once done, they can log back in. There is something simply missing in how a casino identifies that this new user is the same as one who self-excluded.

In addition, there is no single database for the self-exclusion list. So, you may ban yourself from one casino, and yet you can register for an account on another platform. They have no idea that you have self-excluded. A good idea to combat this is to use a single database for self-exclusion and apply it to all accounts.

3. No Proactive Intervention

Earlier, we mentioned something about reality checks. The challenge is that this is not a standard. It is up to the casino to do it.

It would be good if casinos were mandated by the government to proactively act on potential gambling addicts. They have specific data, and it should be enough to say if a player has a problem or not.

Here are some more ideas related to this:

● Increase transparency by using AI to communicate with gamers.

● Make monitoring mandatory.

● Use AI to educate gamblers who are close to showing signs of addiction.

In a time like this where there is a proliferation of AI, it should not be so difficult for casinos to implement this type of intervention. More importantly, there has to be a strong law to govern and provide oversight to casinos. As it stands right now, many of them get a license, and then no check happens about how they deal with gamblers who have a problem.

Ultimately, it is the government that has the responsibility to make all these things happen. We can’t expect casinos to volunteer to do all these things.

Responsible gambling features are great. They protect the players from addiction and the other potential harms of gambling. Overall, gambling websites must have a section where they educate players about the possible harm of gambling. Education is much more powerful than reacting to addiction that is already happening.