Safer Gambling and Consumer Protection Failings Among 40 Frequently Visited Cryptocurrency-Based Online Gambling Operators

Abstract

Online gambling has increased the accessibility and range of gambling products available to people all over the world. This trend has been particularly noticeable in the UK. Cryptocurrency-based gambling is a new, largely unregulated, way to gamble online, which uses mostly anonymous blockchain-based technologies, such as Bitcoin. The present research investigates consumer protection features of 40 frequently visited cryptocurrency-based online gambling operators. Overall, 22 operators allowed access from the UK, whilst 18 operators could only be accessed via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Results revealed significant failings in the account registration process, as none of the operators verified the identity of new users, and 35 percent of operators required only an email or no information at all for signup. Overall, 37.5 percent of operators offered no safer gambling tools and a further 20 percent offered only one. Twenty-two out of 34 operators continued to email promotional material after being informed of a user’s impaired control when gambling. Less than half of the analysed operators held a valid licence, and none of the operators with an available deposit page required identity verification before enabling deposits. These results highlight the need for greater policy and research attention towards cryptocurrency-based online gambling.

Safer gambling and consumer protection failings among 40 frequently visited cryptocurrency-based online gambling operators.

“…Thirty-two (80%) operators had a warning that gambling can be harmful. However, exploratory analyses suggested that most of these messages contained inappropriate themes (a spreadsheet with the text of all 32 warnings can be accessed from Andrade et al, 2022). Twenty-two of the 32 messages in the subsample (68.7%) suggested that gambling is either fun or entertaining (e.g., “[This operator is] a reliable and safe place where you can always have fun and keep yourself entertained.…”

“…Future work should also attempt to collect data directly from users of cryptocurrency-based gambling operators, to better understand common motivations for using them (e.g., to gamble online illegally, or whether gamblers simply prefer them to available legal alternatives). Screenshots of social media discussion of cryptocurrency-based gambling are provided in the supplementary information folder of Andrade et al (2022); these suggest that the lack of identity verification and ability to evade self-exclusion blocks could be key motivations to engage in cryptocurrency-based gambling. Further, previous research suggests that people might be more willing to take risk when gambling online than in land-based venues (Hing et al, 2015, Siemens & Kopp, 2011).…”

“…The present study was preregistered and study materials relevant to assessing the reliability of this study are publicly available at Andrade et al (2022). This link contains the preregistration, underlying data, codebook, results of the dual-coding process, and screen recordings of all the sites visited.…”

Commercial Provision of Zero House-Edge Gambling Products

“…18 And in a few short years cryptocurrencybased gambling has moved from a theoretical possibility, 19 to a few simplified games, 20 and then to a new generation of operators offering a range of games that rival that of conventional online gambling operators. 21 At least two prominent cryptocurrencies have been developed based around the idea of providing zero house-edge games, Edgeless in 2017, 22 and ZeroEdge in 2018. 23 These two cryptocurrency projects had the same premise of providing at least some zero houseedge games to gamblers.…”