One European country plans to significantly tighten controls on gambling addiction

The Institute for Gambling Regulation, which represents licensed gambling operators in the Czech Republic, is developing a tool that will allow for the monitoring of high-risk player behavior across the entire market, rather than on a single platform.

The problem they’re trying to solve: currently, each operator can only see what a player is doing on its own platform. If a person shows signs of problem gambling, they can simply sign up with another operator, and the same pattern will repeat itself without any restrictions.

The essence of the new system is that operators have agreed to share some data on players’ risky behavior. The goal is to identify those who are losing control over their betting or casino play much faster than players with a healthy approach to the process.

Regarding privacy: according to industry media reports, confidential customer information will not be shared among operators. Instead, the system will be built on pseudonymized identifiers that will indicate only a specific player’s risk level.

What they’ll be looking for: sudden spikes in bet sizes, excessively long gaming sessions, attempts to recoup losses, and systematic disregard for the limits the player has set for themselves.

💬 The initiative has already sparked debate in the industry, but it remains unclear who exactly will store this data, how long it will be retained, and who will be responsible for overseeing its use.