The Malta Independent 25 April 2024, Thursday
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Online Casinos Using Software to Detect Problem Gamblers and Blocking Their Access to Their Accounts

Tuesday, 2 August 2022, 08:30 Last update: about 3 years ago

It was unthinkable many years ago, that an online casino operator would ever consider blocking one of their regular customers access to their accounts, but those days are fortunately long gone.

Thanks to some very stringent rules and regulations that have been imposed on companies that do operate any type of gambling site, if a customer is showing any of the well-known signs of being a problem gambler a piece of software installed on the casinosbackend detects it and can and will instantly block access to their accounts.

What then happens is the gambler is instructed to contact the responsible gambling team to discuss their gambling habits and any recent deposits, so that team can ascertain if they are gambling within their means and in a safe way.

The range of casinos and betting sites that now have that software installed is huge and failing to discuss their game play and betting patterns with the respective team can often result in a players account being closed.

As for what triggers that software kicking in and blocking their accounts, well one immediate trigger is lots of deposits in a small period of time, staying logged into the site for a long time whilst gambling for long periods at that site, too.

Some casino and gambling site operators will also choose a maximum deposit limit a player can have in place on their account, and any attempt to deposit more than that amount will be blocked.

Those new policies and additional responsible gambling tools have been demanded by Gambling Commissions who regulate such sites, as there have been a sharp increase regarding the number of people admitting they have a gambling problem, and the ease at which it was once possible to lose a fortune at a gambling site and their problem to not be detected by the operator of those sites.

Huge fines and even having their gambling license revoked if they fail to adhere to those new responsible gambling regulations and policies as dictated to them by their licensing authority are what the punishments can be if they fail to adopt and implement them.

Other tools a gambler will have made available to them are a take a break option, allowing them to suspend their gambling site account for a period of time to allow them to take a step back and not have access to their account for a chosen period of time.

Players that are showing extreme signs of a gambling problem can also request something known as a Self-Exclusion which is a permanent and instant ban from an online gambling site and once taken they are not permitted to ever gamble at that site again.


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