NatCen Finds Ban on Credit Cards Has Little Impact on High-Risk Gamblers

A ban on using credit cards at online gambling sites was put into practice in 2020 and since then there has been a lot of evidence collected about the impacts.

A study by The National Centre for Social Research has been released that finds very few problem gamblers had any benefit from the ban and that those experiencing any form of gambling harm would still find a way to gamble.

Over 130,000 accounts were studied and it was found that around 5% of transactions in periods between 2018 and 2019 took place using credit cards.

The goal of the ban was to make it more difficult for people to gamble using borrowed money as well as helping promote responsible gambling. Operators stopped people from being able to use credit cards to make deposits and though this seemed to help some casual gamblers and more low-risk players it was found to have little impact on gambling harm and problematic gambling.

The report outlines that: “The ban seemed to have a more noticeable impact on those experiencing a low level of, or no reported problems from gambling, who were less likely to (directly and indirectly) use credit cards for gambling after the ban.”

“We saw a statistically significant decrease in the proportion of people experiencing a low level of, or no reported problems from gambling.”

NatCen’s study found that there was some benefit to the ban. It may have helped people who could have been at risk of falling into problematic behaviours. For those already struggling with problem gambling, though, it was a small deterrent, and more needs to be done to try and safeguard certain players.

References

NATCEN – Evaluation of the Credit Card Ban