UK Gambling Commission Monitors Online Social Gaming

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Those who have been watching the online gaming space would have noticed that online real money gambling and social gaming are approaching convergence. Leading online gambling operators have announced investments in social gaming and leading social gaming operators are showing interest in online gambling. Now, as per a report in the publication ‘This Is Money’ the UK Gambling Commission is also seized of the issue and will be monitoring the social gaming space in order to assess its impact on gambling licensing. John Travers of the UK Gambling Commission said that social gaming on sites like Facebook is blurring the boundaries between the pastime and real money gambling and the government is concerned about this. Travers felt that social gaming has already reached the diving line. He said, “The key question is, is it gambling or not?”

Technically, in social gaming the games are usually played with virtual money and for prizes. This enables them to bypass the legal definition of real money gambling. And therefore social gaming has been able to avoid the attention of regulators in the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the reality appears to be different. Players buy virtual currency by paying real money and can cash the points won in the real world. There have been unconfirmed reports of a black market in which players can trade virtual winnings for real money. Social gaming is an influential arena. It is worth billions of dollars to social networking sites like Facebook. These sites enroll members as young as 13 years. Such sites have also seen a proliferation of casino games that are accessed by minor users because they do not directly involve real money gambling. The results are disastrous. Recently in Liverpool a pre-teen school child learned to play poker through free social gaming sites and then misused his father’s credit card on a real money poker site and lost £7,000.

London Stock Exchange listed Bwin.Party, the largest online gambling operator in Europe, had announced that it would invest €50 million into social gaming. The online gambling software provider Playtech has also announced intent to enter the social gaming arena. The statement released by Playtech said, “Playtech has been monitoring social gaming activity operated by various companies through social networks and mobile platforms and has been analyzing a number of ways to penetrate the social gaming arena.” On the other hand social gaming provider Zynga has showed its growing interest in merging gambling and social networking. Zynga has hired lobbyists Jeffrey Peck and Justin McCarthy of Peck, Madigan, Jones & Stewart with an intent to influence the legalization and regulation of online gambling in the United States.

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