Gambling Authority Finalises Promotional Competitions Regulations
Pauline Dikuelo | Monday January 20, 2020 14:43
A promotional competition is defined as a lottery conducted for the purpose of promoting the sale or use of any goods or services under the Gambling Act of 2012.
According to the Authority’s 2019 annual report, in the past year, they considered 65 promotional competitions in which 55 requests were approved to conduct competitions while the remaining 10 were rejected.
“The rejected ones failed to meet the requirements, some applications were incomplete, some proposed activities were not being under the authority’s mandate, some lack information while the other had confusing promotional competitions with private lotteries and avague proposal that does not address the information required,” stated the Authority. In 2017, the Authority suspended the promotional competitions saying that they needed to exclude people under the age of 21 from participating in virtual lotteries and gambling activities.
According to Gambling Authority, the under 21 years are not to gamble even on an online medium which includes SMS as highlighting that advertising gambling must always be directed to age compliant potential gamblers.
Operators were asked to fulfill the rules and regulations set by the Authority in order for them to get a license to continue running online competitions. “Operators need to review their act and give us a plan that will show us how they are going to exclude the under aged, that’s when we will grant them permission to run the promotions,” it added.
Meanwhile, during the year under review, the Authority received 12 complaints in which 11 were from the casinos and one from the promotional competition.
“The complaints investigations are conducted in consultation with the operators to ensure that the operator took reasonable steps in handling the complaint, this ensures that the ultimate resolution reached does not aggrieve either party.”
The Authority also carried out a total of nine investigations, which were triggered by tip offs from members of the public while some were reported to the gambling body.
Some of the cases investigated include illegal gambling where gambling machines were made available to the public illegally, that is without a gambling licence issued by the Authority.
Others were of illegal private lotteries and promotional competitions, which were not approved by the Authority contrary to requirements of the Gambling Act 2012.