IBAS has welcomed the publication today by the Gambling Commission of its new Standards and Guidance for ADR Providers. This follows the publication in August of the Commission’s response to its consultation on changes to its Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP), a document which also explored issues relating to the handling of consumer complaints in the gambling industry.
In March 2017, the Gambling Commission published a review of complaints processes in the gambling industry, which commented substantially on the ADR processes that were already in place for consumers. The IBAS response to that document can be viewed here.
IBAS Managing Director Richard Hayler said today:
“We are pleased to have worked alongside the Gambling Commission and other approved ADR providers to support the development of this document.
“When the Commission published its initial assessment on complaints and disputes handling in the gambling sector we agreed with what it sought to achieve and recognised the scope for services to be improved further. However, we were concerned that the document implied that some ADR services and providers were viewed as being sub-standard, despite there being no sector-specific standard to work against.
“The guidance published today by the Gambling Commission provides a helpful and vital benchmark for all gambling ADR services to review their current practices and procedures against. Having participated in the consultation process its contents are not unexpected, but we will take some time to digest and reflect on it, conscious that judgement against the standards will commence from as soon as 1 November 2018.
“We have already taken on board a number of the observations from the Commission’s review. We have launched the first phase of our new website, we are close to completing the development of a new disputes database that will allow consumers to monitor the progress of their case and earlier this year we announced our acceptance into membership of the Ombudsman Association, a valuable recognition of the standards we seek to provide. We will shortly be announcing details of new members of our adjudication panel.
“We will approach the publication of these standards in the same positive spirit, sharing the goals of the Gambling Commission to improve levels of consumer confidence in betting and gaming.”
NOTES
IBAS has been adjudicating on betting disputes for 20 years in October 2018. IBAS considers the majority of consumer disputes in the gambling sector. In its last full statistical reporting year IBAS it was asked to adjudicate on 7,186 disputes between UK licensed gambling operators and their customers.