The European Commission (EC) has made several customer safety and protection recommendations to the European Union (EU), in the publishing of its Commission Recommendations on European online gambling services.
The Document fully titled ‘Principles for the protection of consumers and players of online gambling services and for the prevention of minors from gambling online’, recommends the EU to set additional state wide binding regulations for igaming services, which all member states should adhere to when regulating igaming within their national frameworks.
A major concern highlighted by the EC, focuses on customer fund protections and misuse of player funds /money held by the igaming operator. The Commission advices that all igaming operators should not be allowed to retain customer funds in the same accounts as their own company funds.
The Commission further argues that separation of customer funds would help bring clarity, when monitoring and regulating igaming operators and their services.
“Member States should have rules in place: to ensure that the players’ funds are protected and can only be paid out to the player, and are kept separate from the operator’s own funds; [and] to avoid collusion by players and money transfers between them including rules regarding annulment of transfers or recovery of funds from player accounts where collusion or fraud is detected”
In its recommendation, the EC further states that EU countries should require online gambling operators to allow players to “set monetary deposit limits, as well as temporal limits” during registration, in order to tackle problem gambling in member states.