Can loss limits be imposed to limit the damage of the game?

wednesday 2 august 2017
In Igaming and online game

In the new guidelines for gambling, the government of the Czech Republic has introduced a formula to limit the hourly losses of the players. This solution could be "copied" in theory to solve some problems related to the pathological game, but putting it into practice could be difficult.

The arrangement of the Ministry of Finance Czech it imposes on the operators in the area and to those offering an online casino service of block the players when their hourly leaks exceed a certain limit, calculated by means of a mathematical formula that takes into account factors such as the amount of the episodes and their number in an hour.

As expected, this new legislation has raised many controversies, followed by the decision of some companies to abandon the activities in the Czech Republic due to the heavy limitations (the rule already provided for a difficult registration procedure for players). The interesting question is: It would be possible to introduce a limitation to losses in the American game market, considering an avant -garde regulation compared to the rest of the European countries?

Can you do it in American online casinos?

Although difficult to realize regarding terrestrial casinos, The idea of limiting players' losses in online casinos could in theory solve some of the problems related to compulsive gamenull Blocking the players who "are exaggerating" would proactively would be a nice step forward regarding the Responsible gamenull In practice, however, some rather thorny problems should be taken into consideration (and solved), for example:

  • A Shared database that keeps trace of all the games of the same player also on sites or apps of different operators. Limiting losses on a single game site when the player can safely access bets through another operator would have the same usefulness as the current weekly deposit limits.
  • The mathematical formula to calculate the limit to losses should take into account, in addition to the factors already provided for by the Czech legislation, also of the standard of living of the individual user: For some $ 100 of losses they could already represent a problem, for others perhaps they would be only "crumbs".
  • On one day there is 24 hours. We should evaluate whether to consider one limitation in a very short period of time, or extend it to even longer periods of time, for example on a daily basis, as hypothesized some time ago in relation to the American game sector.

Among these, the problem in our opinion currently unresolved is the second, both technical and bureaucratic level. For the other two, various solutions of sure feasibility would be conceivable.

What the legislation currently provides for

At the moment the American rule provides for as the only one limitation system the one self-imposed by the same playersnull Although it is a functional and well -studied system, it is applied independently for each operator or online casino.

This means that a player, having reached the episode or self-imposed weekly storage limit, can very well open the website of another casino and continue playing. The same goes for self-exclusion.

A first and important step to take towards the most evolution of the American regulatory system for online game could therefore be to create a database shared among all the brands operating in the American market, so that the players' self-life cannot be circumvented.