Regulation is the Real Key to Norway’s Gambling Woes

Gambling regulation is not an easy task. Regulators in many high-profile gambling jurisdictions are always striving to provide a good balance of protective laws while ensuring that they do not stifle the marketplace with burdensome and unnecessary protocols. It’s no fine art, however, many regulators are making headway.

Currently, Norway is struggling to keep the rise in problem gambling under control and have called for heightened measures in gambling compliance, which may be misdirected.

 The Statistics

According to studies by the University of Bergen in Norway, problem gambling has increased by 0.6% in only 5 years. This is a worrying factor given the fact that progressive regulations in the industry are designed to ensure less risk of these occurrences. The knee-jerk reaction of the gambling regulator in the country has been to look to banks to bolster payment blocking, to ensure that the domestic market is secured and that players are protected from remote online casino operators.

As such, the Norwegian Gambling Authority (NGA) has sent 170 banks a survey to conduct as a part of an investigation into the control financial institutions have over gambling transactions from offshore.

 Refocus Needed

As the NBO (the trade body representing Norway’s grey market online operators) has pointed out, the NGA has failed to successfully enforce payment blocking for over a decade now. Despite targeting this medium, the problems persist. It may be time to look at other avenues of regulation to get the job done.

Secretary-General, Carl Frederick Stenstrøm, has argued that the real problem may be that consumers are not given adequate tools and protocols for protection from the sites they play on within the country.

The responsible gambling tools implemented in Norway, such as loss limit settings, are far less effective than national self-exclusion programs. Stenstrøm states that the problem must be tackled by concentrating on two primary objectives:

1. Provision of the proper tools for players to self-exclude
2. Strike a balance between market attractiveness and responsible play

While Norway evades inclusion into the European Union, they may be able to learn a thing or two about efficient gambling regulation from their EU neighbours, like Sweden. The Malta Gaming Authority is also a known benchmark in the field and provides a great example of balanced regulation.

Here, a combination of tools are used to curb the risk to players, such as:

• Effective marketing warning players of the dangers of gambling.
• Self-assessment Campaigns which allow players to come to terms with the fact that they may be vulnerable to the risks of gambling.
• Self-Exclusion protocols, where players can either temporarily or permanently ban themselves from gambling.
• Reality Check notifications come up on the screen to help players break the immersive effect that gaming can have on the mind.
• Limit Setting, where players can either set spend or loss limits to save themselves from destructive playing habits.

The restrictive gambling climate in Norway may present the ideal platform to instil stricter responsible gambling protocols to effectively combat the rise in risk in the industry.

Controlling players seeking entertainment offshore is a difficult war to win but ensuring that the domestic environment is safe may be far more workable in the long run.