Newbie question about UK licensing

[bustedflush]

Hi,

I'm actually running a few affiliate sites with a partner now, but we're still relatively new so I thought it best to post here. I've also searched for this topic on other threads and been unable to find any recent answers (apologies if I've missed something).

We are based in the UK and when we started this project we assumed we would get mostly UK traffic. The UK is only accounting for about 40% of our traffic and an even lower percentage of our conversions (just anecdotally - no figures to back this up). We have a .com domain for our main domains, so it seems less and less rational for us to think of our sites as 'UK-facing,' at least exclusively.

Here's my question: if we started putting up sites that did not have a UK license, are we responsible for warning our UK visitors not to use that operator? One operator in particular, which does not have a UK license, has told me they are happy to accept UK traffic as long as we are not sending it from a .co.uk domain.

There's another operator we've signed up for but I've not promoted yet that clearly wants UK traffic despite not having a license, but will not openly say this. They have in their Terms and Conditions that they accept UK traffic, but when I asked them directly they said they didn't. This is an operator I found out about via the GPWA newsletter, so I am assuming they are relatively legit.

Any thoughts or advice welcome.

Thank you!

[casinogamespro]

Hi,

I would suggest to display ads based on the geo location of your visitors (UK visitors see only casinos with UK license, Italian visitors see only casinos with Italian license and so on). It allows you to promote licensed casinos for a specific region, but also will increase your conversion from click to registration.

[sweetbet]

That's very good advice. You might also want to add a set of flags for the visitor to click on.

[bustedflush]

Thanks both, but I don't think you understood my question. I'm more curious about what our legal responsibilities are. We are creating different language versions with different flags to click on, etc. My question is more about our responsibility. Are we responsible for trying to prevent UK players from playing on non-UK-licensed casinos? If so, how far does that responsibility extend? Do we just have to warn people from the UK not to play, or totally scrub all non-UK-licensed casinos from our site? The latter seems silly as less than half our traffic is from the UK. If a UK player clicks on a link on our site to a non-UK-licensed site and that site accepts the traffic, have we the affiliate done anything wrong (morally or legally)?

[Miles_Videoslots]

I dont think creating Flags for each Country's brands and Geo Targeting are the same things .. what these guys are trying to say is to avoid any legal issues and to make sure your 100% Safe from any Legal bodies that you Geo target the site so that any players coming in from UK only get to see UK Casinos and UK Content and Nothing else .. so should a player lets say from the US happen to find your site your site should be clever enough to recognise he is accessing it from a US IP and show him Casinos that Do accept US Players etc this way your safe. I would go as far as to say that if your using a .co.uk Domain then you would be safer only having UK Licence casinos im not an expert but i think the baove advice is very good.

Also check http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/ you may get some more information there

[baldidiot]

Are we responsible for trying to prevent UK players from playing on non-UK-licensed casinos? If so, how far does that responsibility extend? Do we just have to warn people from the UK not to play, or totally scrub all non-UK-licensed casinos from our site? The latter seems silly as less than half our traffic is from the UK. If a UK player clicks on a link on our site to a non-UK-licensed site and that site accepts the traffic, have we the affiliate done anything wrong (morally or legally)?

Yes. It's now illegal in the UK.

With the old rules it was more of a 'we prefer you not to' but the new rules that came in a couple of years ago are a lot more specific. I've not heard of any affiliate falling foul of it yet, but the gambling commission have recently prosecuted someone for running an unlicensed gambling site - so they definitely have more teeth than they used to.

If you geotarget so you don't show the non UK licensed brands to the UK you should be fine. Likewise if you promote non UK licensed brands that don't accept UK players but that get seen by UK visitors you're also OK (I think).

The issue comes when you advertise non UK licensed brands that accept UK players to someone on a UK IP. That's a big no-no.

If you're UK based I would strongly advise getting to know the terms of the gambling act and making sure you comply.

[dinaharrison]

That's very good advice. You might also want to add a set of flags for the visitor to click on.

I agree! A set of flags is def a pretty good darn idea!