Joelson Wilson
Friday 23 December 2011

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Gambling Law Update

Facebook in talks to launch real-money online gambling

The social network giant is in the early stages of discussions with several operators to provide real-money online gambling to the UK. Initially, Facebook is considering offering eight ‘licences’, each to an individual operator, using the social network as a platform for the operators to integrate their apps. Sources revealed that Gamesys and 888 are “first in the queue”. Gamesys claims 1.7m monthly users for its slots games from Facebook with 888 claiming 650,000 monthly users from its Bingo Island game on Facebook.

In July this year, Facebook changed its apps policy to allow UK gambling companies to launch non-gambling apps, provided it was made clear that it was play for fun and earnings could not be cashed out or converted to credit for online gambling or brick and mortar casinos. The non-gambling app could include links from Facebook to a blog promoting the company’s products. In August, further policy changes enabled regulated markets outside the US to advertise egaming on Facebook.

Sources said that Facebook could launch real-money gambling in the UK as early as the first quarter of 2012.

Indicators of betting as primary gambling activity

The Gambling Commission believes that holders of non-remote general betting standard operating licences must provide betting as the primary gambling activity on licensed betting premises. As a result, it introduced condition 16 of the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP) in May 2009 which stated that gaming machines could only be made available for use in licensing betting premises when sufficient betting facilities are also available.

The Commission has published a compliance framework document which sets out the six indicators it uses to assess whether premises are compliant with the LCCP. Although cases are judged on their merits, the indicators apply to most premises. Operators who feel the indicators should not apply to them, e.g. specialist or niche betting operations, will need to provide the Commission with an explanation. A brief description of the Commission’s idea of what it considers a typical betting shop should offer as the primary betting activity is also included for each indicator.

Technical changes in respect of 2005 Act casinos

Large and small casinos, created by the Gambling Act 2005, can offer facilities for gambling in reliance on more than one type of operating licence but can operate under only one premises licence. Following a consultation, the Gambling Commission has amended the LCCP to incorporate the technical changes needed to meet the requirements of the Gambling Act 2005 in respect of these premises.

Supplement 10 sets out the changes to the LCCP and can be found here.

New egaming proposals for Nevada

The Nevada State Gaming Control Board (GCB) has been debating new egaming proposals in relation to account verification, prevention of collusion and underage gambling, amongst other issues.

Many of the issues discussed were to be considered by the Nevada Gaming Commission at its meeting on 22 December 2011.

Amongst the latest proposals is a concept for operators to “use a celebrity player for marketing purposes to attract authorised players if the operator clearly identifies the celebrity player to the authorised players and does not profit beyond the rake”.

Earlier in the year, Mark Lipparelli, GCB chairman, stated that licence applications could be considered as early as February 2012, but new proposals are still being added to the existing regulatory framework.