GamStop Reports 25% Rise of Self-Excluded Customers
Recently, Gamstop has reported a considerable rise in registrations recorded during 2021. This free self-exclusion scheme has gained a great reputation as an excellent blocking tool in the UK as well as an effective solution to reduce harms related to gambling. As revealed by this independent organism, a 25% year-on-year rise in registrations on this scheme has been marked during the first half of 2021.
GamStop, actually, announced that more than 40,000 players registered at this platform during the six months of the end of June with a total number of over 218,000 registrants. 59% of those who signed up were aged between 18 and 34 with 70% of male and 30% female. Another good news broken by this safer gambling tool is that 58% of the registrants chose the period of five years, the maximum self-exclusion term.
A Broader Insight into Gambling Behaviours
GamStop also revealed the bi-annual review not only to obtain clear results in terms of trends on its platform but also to provide a wider insight regarding non GamStop casinos in the UK and gambling behaviours of British players. As announced by this non-profit organisation, March was the second-highest record on registration. Added to the policy for this blocking system improvement, GamStop hired a research agency Sonnet to conduct an evaluation on its platform.
The outcomes undertaken by this research agency have shown that from a survey of 3,300 registered users, a wide diversity of ages, ethnicities, and socio-economic groups were registered to use this self-exclusion tool. 89% of users were white, 3% Asian, 2% Black, and 1% mixed which match with the entire British population. Moreover, as stated by Sonnet, the users' socio-economic status of people who experience gambling-related problems varied with 29% living in households earning more than £48,000 per annum and 48% with an income of £32,000 per annum. On these registrants, over 75% worked full or part-time and 63% had no children in their household.
Fiona Palmer, GamStop chief executive said:
“While it is encouraging to see that consumers are continuing to find GamStop and use it as a crucial safety net in their recovery, this review reinforces the importance of continuing to raise awareness of practical tools that are available to those struggling with gambling-related harm”.
“Our evaluation results demonstrate that gambling-related harm is an issue that affects people from all walks of life, irrespective of income, location, or gender.
“It is imperative that we continue to reach people from across the UK, and to give them access to tools that can aid them in their recovery or form an important preventative measure.”
An Increase in Self-Exclusion Rates
In July, GamStop conducted a survey after the UK Gambling Commission had published the outcomes of its own survey that noticed a limited level of knowledge of self-exclusion gambling tools among the gamblers in the last 12 months.
This UKGC survey was carried out by Yonder, and in 8,000 respondents, 4,576 said that they gambled in the past year. According to this survey, only 13% of players who are asked about had used one of the seven safer gambling schemes. 26% of the users were young gamblers with ages between 18 and 24 while 4% of those were 65 and over.
After the gambling watchdog published the results of the review, GamStop revealed the feedback of the survey conducted by this national online gambling self-exclusion service. In this review of 1,703 respondents, 1,576 were current GamStop users and 127 were former users.
While registering at this blocking software, 1,231 said that they gave up gambling while 471 affirmed to still gamble by hook or by crook. Over 300 registrants who continued to gamble still practised their habits whereas less than 200 registered at the offshore sites.