It is reported that French gaming regulator, l’Autorité Nationale des Jeux (ANJ) is set to ban the offering of bonuses to gamblers, at risk of harm.
The regulator is said to have issued a number of binding guidelines, and non-binding recommendations to operators on the subject of bonuses and the language used in its offer.
Binding Guidelines
It is reported that part of the guidelines, was for operators to ensure that no commercial offer, includes financial reward to people identified as potentially having compulsive or extreme gambling tendencies.
Operators are expected to exercise specific caution, with regard to people who have recently benefited from a self-exclusion measure or a gambling ban.
It also said that the frequency, and size of bonus offers made to consumers, should be reasonable.
The guidelines is said to also deal with language and message around bonus offers, which could be misleading or not adequately transparent. Therefore any bonus offer that omits, conceals or provides material information in an unintelligible, ambiguous or out of time manner, is prohibited.
The language used for any bonus offer, must include the duration of the offer; if the offer his completely free or if it requires a bet to be placed first; if the reward can be withdrawn and how (cash or credits); whether the bonus received is fixed or variable, and any other necessary conditions required for the player to receive the bonus.
According to the ANJ, the complete rules of the financial reward offer must be written in a legible and understandable manner and must be made available on an easily accessible medium.
Non-binding bonus cap
The regulator in its recommendations, said that operators should not offer welcome bonuses worth more than €100, whether as a single bonus or in a package.
The regulator also called on operators, to rebalance commercial offers and loyalty programmes for existing customers, so that promos were less linked, to the level of intensity of play.
Also for transparency, the guidelines expects operators to use specific examples, to illustrate how much a player is likely to win in practice, from certain bonus offers.
