The new solution called BetStop is a powerful tool that will allow gamblers to exclude themselves from all online gambling across the entire country. This offers a blanket solution to players who may have been struggling to keep their gambling under control.
BetStop Readies to Fire Up in All States in Australia
The national self-exclusion register will launch on August 21 and comes five years after a law broaching the concept was introduced back in 2018. The idea behind this new solution is to significantly strengthen individual states’ laggard response to a lack of proper self-exclusion programs by ensuring that the national scheme supersedes them and delivers stronger protection to consumers in the first place.
Championed under the stint of Paul Fletcher, the then communications minister, BetStop is designed to indeed help protect consumers. Fletcher was a passionate proponent of the measure and said that it would prove an efficient way to actually save lives. BetStop itself would cover 75 online bookmakers – or thereabouts – gathering all licensed operators in the state.
The solution would not work against companies that have not obtained a legal license but are actively targeting Australian consumers and causing harm. These websites would have to be regulated and controlled by the Australian Media and Communications Authority (ACMA).
The idea behind BetStop is not just to have it launched, but also to make it accessible to players and consumers and motivate people to self-exclude and enrol in the first place. Meanwhile, communications minister Michelle Rowland is already outlining plans for how the launch would take place.
Rowland has hailed the pending rollout of the solution as an important “game changer” for the entire gambling industry, and importantly – for vulnerable consumers who need help. BetStop is the last of ten measures introduced by the National Consumer Protection Framework and it is one of the most impactful solutions to date, Rowland said.
BetStop has also been the object of some criticism by regulators in the country, but this has now improved.
Players Need to Manually Self-Exclude Once Again
BetStop is not putting the onus on consumers, however, as the solution will also be targeted at bookmakers that will now have to make sure that a person is not self-excluded before accepting a wager from them.
A small hitch here is that people who have already self-excluded under local and state programs would need to do the same as soon as BetStop launches. This could prove counterproductive and offset some of the progress being made. Even then, Rowland considers the upcoming self-exclusion register to be for the good of consumers.
Fiona Simmons
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