The world is constantly changing and new rules and regulations are being introduced to meet these changes head on. What was relevant a few years ago, may not be relevant to the world in the here and now. Gambling is a great example of how laws and regulations need constant updating to keep up with change. Before the mid 1990s, gambling was contained in its traditional environments of land-based casinos, betting shops and gambling arcades. These places were licensed and regulated by the gambling laws during that time. However, the introduction of online gambling courtesy of online casinos in 1996, made the containment of gambling impossible. This is because online casinos could be accessed by millions of people who had the internet in their homes. This made previous gambling laws almost obsolete. To complicate matters further, the introduction of mobile slots at www.slotsuk.co.uk made things even more difficult to control.
Time Of Change
Tony Blair’s Labour government was kind to gambling and many laws were relaxed to accommodate this new gambling landscape that was created by the digital revolution. Unfortunately, some of the hundreds of new online casinos took punters for granted and operated by their own laws and this created an army of dissatisfied customers. To remedy this and bring some balance back in the favour of gamblers the UK Gambling Commission was created and its mission was to set rules which online casinos had to follow, if they wanted to be granted a license. Otherwise they would no longer be allowed to operate within the UK. Eventually, unscrupulous casinos were pushed out of the UK market leaving behind only licensed venues.
More Law Changes Needed
With a huge uptake in gambling by the masses, stories of gambling addiction have hit the headlines. Pressure groups have also helped convince the current government that more law changes are needed in the present gambling climate. Recently, the main law changes involving the world of gambling have come in the shape of limiting the maximum bet at Fixed Odds Betting Terminals that are found in betting shops, from £200 to £2. These changes came into force in October 2019. This law change was announced in May 2018 and it took over a year to become enforced. A quicker new law was introduced in April 2020 when it became illegal to gamble using credit cards. This was again used to protect people from racking up huge debts by gambling on credit.
Future Changes
The government may be done with gambling law changes for now, but it is thought that the next focus of law changes will be specifically aimed at the online gambling market and in particular, the maximum bets that are allowed on online slots. You can still bet hundreds of pounds per spin and for many, this is unacceptable. If a betting limit should be applied to online slots, then this will hit revenue hard. However, for an industry that took £2billion in revenue from slots alone last year, few punters will have much sympathy for the gambling industry.
