Last week, the gambling industry in the UK was mainly concerned with different campaigns that are related to better protection of the integrity of professional football during the UEFA Euro 2020 championships. There were also calls for finance companies to ensure better protection for vulnerable players by closing all loopholes used to avoid gambling blocks.
Ladbrokes launched a new campaign that showed the sportsbook in a new light, helping sectors outside professional sports by working with numerous artists on its “This time we play together” campaign. In the meantime, GamCare asked various businesses to work on preventing loopholes that may be used by players to avoid gambling blocks.
GamCare Calls for Closing of Gambling Block Loopholes
Following GamCare’s “Gambling Related Financial Harm” workshop, the UK charity asked financial institutions and business companies to work on closing all “gambling block” loopholes that may potentially cause problems to vulnerable players.
The workshop had several financial shareholders sharing the latest tools and technology used by financial institutions to block gambling-related transactions. About 45 representatives of sectors like banking, payment solutions, customer security and verification, debt services, and more were a part of the workshop.
Thanks to the insight of individuals who have suffered gambling-related harms, the workshop showed plenty of examples of how vulnerable players can take advantage of loopholes to avoid gambling blocks.
The Financial Harm Manager at GamCare, Raminta Diliso, expressed her gratitude towards the different organisations that were engaged in resolving this issue. She also shared that the charity hopes to gain the support of different financial institutions and UK-based businesses to ensure a safer gambling environment for vulnerable individuals.
According to the data collected by GamCare, every year, about 70% of the people who contact the organisation report having some type of gambling-related debt or are going through a financially challenging time. While gambling blocks are a great way to help players who wish to stop gambling, there are many reports of players finding loopholes to avoid such blocks.
Even though gamblers would make use of gambling stops, they would still find a way to make deposits with gambling companies. The main concern was the wide range of non-card payments supported by online gaming operators. Solutions like e-wallets and instant banking are often used to avoid payment blocks at gambling operators.
According to financial experts, there are numerous payment solutions that do not use the right merchant category code and banking institutions cannot properly classify such payments. This is a trick used by many unlicensed operators to mislead banking institutions and classify their transactions as non-gambling payments. Using misleading merchant codes is one of those loopholes that are used to avoid gambling blocks and potentially cause more harm to vulnerable players. At the end of the GamCare workshop, there were calls for e-wallets to introduce new tools to block gambling-related transactions.
Natalie Ledward, Head of Vulnerable Customers at Monzo and one of the participants in the workshop, noted that Monzo was the first banking institution in the UK to introduce gambling blocks. Ever since this tool was implemented in the bank’s operation, less than 10% of the 300,000 customers who have made use of gambling blocks have turned them off.
Ladbrokes Launches New Campaign for the 2020 Euro Championship
The sportsbook operator Ladbrokes has adopted a new approach for its campaign promoting the Euro 2020 football championship. Earlier in May, the company launched a very different campaign that resembled more a dating application advertisement rather than a sportsbook ad. Now, Ladbrokes has yet again taken a turn in its Euro 2020 football tournament advertisement.
For its new Euro 2020 campaign, Ladbrokes has hired Neverland as they believe the company has many fresh ideas that would still be on brand with the way Ladbrokes views itself for the future. The new campaign of Ladbrokes was launched during the broadcast of the Manchester City and Chelsea FC match on Saturday.
The new campaign was shot in May last year and it featured about 190 professional drummers and more than 200 extras. This made the ad the highest-value production of Ladbrokes, hoping to show the new approach of the sportsbook operator. Instead of focusing on sports betting, the company is hoping to show a new side of the excitement of playing and enjoying professional football matches.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on various businesses, Ladbrokes strives to help many professionals who have been unemployed for the last year. The sportsbook operator decided to make donations to several sectors of live entertainment that are not related to sport and help them recover after the devastating effects of the pandemic.