Unlicensed promotions and affiliates’ responsibility in the online gaming market

Promotions assist to raise brand recognition and frequently result in an increase in visitors, customers, and sales

Operators need to keep in mind how lawful the action is, obey regulations, pay special attention to risk and provide the reward promised to their clients.

Advertising and promotions for online gambling activities are frequently unregulated and are sometimes handled in the same way as the gambling activity itself. However, when it comes to creating regulatory regulations and best practices for promotional activities like marketing and advertising, there are certain differences to consider.

Most existing regulation procedures are unconnected, contradictory, and frequently problematic, whether due to the content’s link with historically iniquitous acts or just the boundlessness of the Internet.

According to Online Casino Ground, the Dutch gambling law’s existing prohibitions on online gambling have driven nearly half of all sports bettors to illegal sites that may offer goods like live betting and bonus incentives.

Given that gambling addiction is one of the most pressing societal problems when it comes to regulating online gambling advertising, operators and promoters would be well to consider it while creating industry best practices.

Regulating material in any form necessitates a careful balancing act between individual rights and community duties. This is particularly relevant when dealing with a “vice” business such as internet gambling.

However, in addressing best practices in a worldwide industry, online gambling marketers might consider the benefits of such advertising standards when applied via self-regulatory guidelines instead of government-imposed laws.

Although many online gambling promotions may not rise to the level of ‘deception,’ it is not uncommon for advertisements in such an under-regulated industry to ride the line of ‘misleading’ when attempting to capitalise on a global market.

Given the anonymity that comes along with advertising in the virtual world, it is crucial that advertised services are portrayed accurately in any promotional materials. This is especially true for online gaming marketing, where a simple opinion from a player could be seen as a fraudulent promise to future users.

For example, online gambling promotions should not guarantee a specific rate of return on wagers, provide false or exaggerated probabilities of success, or even draw success rate comparisons between itself and competitors without specific, factual bases.

Although statements of opinion utilised in marketing materials should certainly remain within the realm of protected speech, implementing self-governed guidelines to avoid deceiving consumers, whether intentional or not, would aid in leveling this global playing field, and legitimizing the industry as a whole.

Legislative authorities must be aware of intruding on what might be legally protected commercial speech because of the high bar set on advertising-related laws.

Locally regulated market operators are all well aware of the need for responsible gaming. Regulators, lawmakers, and business critics have frequently emphasised their own duty to their consumers in recent years. In the meanwhile, affiliates have played a modest part in the discussion.

While everyone in the gaming industry strives for increased revenue and a larger share of the market, affiliates play a critical role in establishing and maintaining a socially responsible operating environment that prioritises consumer safety as their advertising sources and reaches is limitless.

The minute customers leave the online casino, it is up to the operator to take action, and here is where affiliates may help safeguard players by conducting due diligence on their partners. This should entail spending several hours studying an online casino before reviewing it, adding it to affiliate sites, and promoting it to players.

By doing this affiliates put the greatest effort into informing visitors about responsible and safe gaming within the researched online casino‘s. The ultimate responsibility and guarantees are with the operator. Affiliates should simply not feature an online casino on their sites if it does not appear to be following the proper approach – this may have a negative financial impact, but it is the appropriate thing to do.

Affiliates should also evaluate how the operator interacts with them in terms of responsible gambling and whether they are willing to assist in the improvement of their procedures and standards.

In most situations, the safeguards in place on their gambling sites are sufficient to keep users playing responsibly but affiliates can do more.

Affiliate licences should be taken into consideration to improve this situation as this will provide publishers with a much better understanding of the regulations they must follow. Currently, the operator is the one who bears the risk. If an affiliate is irresponsible they will face little repercussions. On the other hand, the operator’s license may be revoked.

Although some of the world’s most politically visible countries have enacted varying forms of regulation for modern online gambling advertisements, the Internet-based gaming community as a whole has an obligation to call on one another to enact self-regulatory principles and demand a higher level of professionalism and truth in advertising from one another.

Next up: Malta Week

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The cross-collaboration of each brand makes Malta Week the number one destination for leading think-tanks of the gaming sector, emerging tech, digital health, and digital marketing. The middle of the Mediterranean is the perfect place for multi-faceted business deals and face-to-face conversations with leading affiliates, policymakers, and thought leaders.