Changing rule and regulation can have a huge impact on new starts and already established businesses, and some of these changes can often come without warning or come with the expectation for a quick turnaround regardless of the impact it may have. For the UK gambling industry, these changes have come thick and fast in recent years, the launch of the Gamstop initiative meant a number of operators had to adjust how they operate and gave rise to the launch of bitcoin casinos not on gamstop, and similarly the recent ban on credit card gambling in the UK saw this change further.

One of these changes was recently covered, in an effort to make one part specifically of online casinos more user friendly there are a number of changes being made to UK slots in order to slow them down, alongside other changes noted such as the ability to further track the time played alongside wins and losses to provide more control over play options. This change is expected to be fully in place for all UK based operators by October and will be likely the first of many changes to come, but the latest change comes following a survey that suggested the general public would be fan with a ban on all gambling advertising.

This isn’t the first-time advertising has come in to view for gambling services, last year during the height of the pandemic there had been a complete ban temporarily for TV and radio gambling advertising in order to keep those most at risk protected, and last year there had been other nods towards restricting the use of celebrities or public figures in these adverts too with those under the age of 18 being the protected targets here for features too. The survey recently conducted of more than 12,000 people stated that nearly 70% would support a full ban on gambling advertising across all channels, with only 14% opposing it entirely, and the Chief Executive of the Royal Society for Public Health stated “Advertising is a powerful force in our society – it not only influences what we buy, but it also tells us what is normal. We no longer allow airtime to other products which harm our health, like tobacco products. Gambling should be no different.”

Whilst there’s no concrete news that there will be a change that’s made, there is certainly mounting pressure for change to be made and in line with the slowing down of services it could also mean that in the not-too-distant future we may see a complete ban on all gambling advertising in the UK across all distribution channels.