The UK Gambling Commission has published a further update on the ongoing pilot of financial risk assessments.

Written by the Director of Major Policy Projects who is leading the pilot, Helen Rhodes, this update provides information on Stage two of the pilot and the issues being explored in the final stages of the pilot.

Financial risk assessments are a proposed way of identifying high-spending remote gambling customers who may be in financial difficulties, in order to help support them. This is not the same as “affordability checks” – the Commission does not have any regulatory requirements for affordability checks and is not proposing any.

Financial risk assessments would be a much more targeted way of identifying potentially financially vulnerable customers. They would not affect a customer’s credit score if they were introduced in the future. 

Director of Major Policy Projects, Helen Rhodes said: “These further findings from the pilot have helped us understand the extent that assessments could be conducted in a frictionless manner. 

“Building on our staged approach to the pilot, we will now further explore data consistency across credit reference agencies, as well as how to support operators to identify the severity of financial difficulties that a customer may be experiencing and how they could support these customers.”