Protecting banking customers using gambling restrictions

The approach allows researchers to develop themes of ideas, or common features of studies, prior to deductive theory-based analysis. First, we imported all deduplicated references into Rayyan collaborative software for abstract review. After the abstract-based selection, the second step involved an inductive full-text analysis of articles.

Once installed, it uses customizable settings to block gambling-related content, ensuring users are protected from impulsive gambling behavior. It provides a free, reliable method to control gambling habits for individuals seeking financial responsibility. Currie et al. (2017), for example, argued that non-problem gambling can still hold negative financial consequences affecting an individual’s ability to meet ends and financial resilience. Other studies, such as Farrell’s (2018), noted that harm to an individual’s general subjective well-being can be considered a wellbeing component effect of harm arising from gambling behavior. Customer journey maps visually represent user experiences in using services such as gambling websites (24).

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. This move closely follows the passing of Ireland’s Gambling Regulation Bill 2022, spearheaded by Junior Justice Minister James Browne. The legislation envisions significant reforms to the nation’s gambling regulations, such as advertising restrictions, a national self-exclusion register, and a social fund to support problem gambling initiatives.

How to Disable or Block Gambling Transactions

Financial institutions including banks and credit providers are able to contribute to reducing harms from online gambling by providing consumer tools to assist individuals to manage their online gambling spending and using algorithms to identify indicators of risky gambling (37). Financial institutions could provide individuals with comprehensive activity and expenditure statements collating all gambling spending in one place and as a proportion of income and discretionary expenditure. Statements could be an easily accessible way to communicate to customers evidence of risk indicators such as increased gambling spend or frequency in relation to previous time periods and relative to income and other expenses.

The characteristics of hard-barrier systems and tools

By enabling a gambling block, users can avoid falling into debt and maintain better financial control. The gambling industry is responsible for ensuring that websites, apps, products, offers, marketing, and communication are designed to facilitate the customer’s need for autonomy (31), encourage gambling only at personally affordable levels, and reduce the risk of foreseeable harms. Operators should avoid using overly persuasive design elements as this violates the principles of autonomy and informed choice. The largest and most extensive evaluation of ATM removal from gaming venues was conducted by Thomas et al. (2013) in Victoria, Australia. Involving 928 gamblers in a pre-post survey, Thomas and colleagues reported a significant reduction in EGM expenditure between baseline and a 30-day follow-up evaluation. People with problem gambling reported a reduction in average monthly expenditure from AUD$277 to AUD$187 in hotels and AUD$203 to AUD$161 in clubs.

If you are an iGaming company, one of the most effective ways to keep ahead of any finance-related issues is to have a trusted financial partner – and that’s where Genome comes in. As a licensed electronic money institution, Genome supports iGaming businesses across Europe. Paruyr’s vision is to revolutionize the sports entertainment industry by integrating technology. He sees the future of sports entertainment as a blend of traditional sports knowledge with innovative tech solutions, like decentralized protocols, to enhance user experience and fairness.

Over €2.1 billion is lost annually, and ESRI research shows that one in 30 adults in Ireland suffers from problem gambling, with nearly 280,000 more at moderate risk. Notably, only 1% of those needing treatment currently receive it, due to stigma, lack of resources, or absence of public education. Following current trends, AI strikes me as something that could be a great tool to be used to understand a user’s banking and gambling habits to learn whether these transactions are harmful to the user. TalkBanStop offers a combination of support, blocking software and self-exclusion to help people stop gambling. Halifax includes personal stories from customers who have had gambling issues in the past to create a sense of relatability with whoever is reading the webpage and looking for support. It is a quick process that can have an immediate positive impact and does so for many customers.

The Irish government envisions this register as a modern solution better suited to the rapidly evolving gambling landscape. The GRAI, established only in March 2025, has already set its sights on systemic methods to reduce gambling-related harm. The push for uniformity—through banking blocks, industry-wide self-exclusion registers, and advertising controls—is rapidly gaining traction. In an interview with RBI earlier this year, Sibstar, a banking app designed to help families suffering from dementia, suggested that in the future its programme could be expanded to also assist those impacted by problem gambling. This power of attorney could be a positive move that banks will make in the future, finetuning the experience to cater to the specific needs of those with gambling addiction.

GambleAware launches Support Tool app for young gamblers

This review also encourages collaboration between financial institutions, policymakers, regulators, and researchers to develop better regulations and intervention strategies. The search of Medline, Cochrane, PsycInfo, Scopus and PDQT (dissertations and theses) databases provided a total of 1,646 citations. Of these, 1,129 studies were removed because review of the titles and abstracts indicated that these papers did not meet the study criteria.

• On a positive side, behavioral science can identify nudges that steer users toward healthier levels of engagement with online gambling (which, for some people, may not include any gambling).
• However, implementing such an initiative may entail practical, political, and ethical considerations that are beyond the scope of this research.
• Monzo has the refreshingly honest outlook that the duty to exclude relies almost entirely on the customer.
• Back to the gambling block topic, almost every transaction with a merchant is tagged with a code that identifies the type of service provided.
• By proactively implementing these measures, you can effectively block or disable gambling transactions, thereby promoting responsible gambling practices and protecting your financial well-being.

Markham et al. (2017) noted that some gambling products such as EGM are found to have a greater prevalence of financial harm. In the same vein, Heiskanen (2017) noted that the conceptualization and meaning of money in a player’s life can determine their financial behaviors. Even though there exists ample research work on the effect of socio-demographic factors on gambling behaviors per se, we found few research that connects these factors with one’s financial wellbeing. Canale et al. (2017) examined gambling harms from the perspective of poverty and inequality. Low levels of education and neighborhoods with low social capital and household income have also been identified as risk factors for harmful gambling (Hilbrecht et al., 2020).

No difference was detected in the amount spent at casinos and racecourses which were exempt from the ATM ban. These findings were consistent with industry reports which found a 7% reduction across the state of Victoria in the six-month post evaluation period. Participants stated that ATM removal assisted people to ‘think twice’ about further expenditure. Some noted that ATM removal would not be enough to stop people from excessive gambling once problems had developed but that it might be useful as a way of preventing harm from occurring in the first place (Thomas et al., 2013).

This method does well to tailor the search to what could potentially be the specific needs of the customer. It is no surprise that Starling Bank and Monzo are some of the most vocal about gambling restrictions. As it is now viewed as a more modern issue, it is the more modern banking companies that have shown, what appears to be, a clearer understanding of the issues.

For example, Wells Fargo allows customers to set up gambling blocks on their credit cards through their online banking portal. Gambling industry operators have a responsibility to “know their customer,” to verify a customer’s identity prior to accepting any bets, and to avoid exacerbating any harms experienced by customers who are identified as at-risk or already experiencing gambling-related problems. Verified player accounts enable identification of behavioral risk markers and personalized private interfaces to push customized messages and interventions (32, 33).

In collaboration with industry operators and financial institutions, this research could inform algorithms to identify at-risk individuals in practice and deliver automatised, personalized intervention or prevention strategies. The intersection between online gambling, fraud, theft, and violence-related offenses, for example, could usefully be explored by criminologists. Such insights will help in arguments regarding policy and regulatory responses required to minimize harms.

This study was funded through a grant from the Independent Research Council of Svenska Spel. He has approximate knowledge about many things, which he is always willing to apply when researching and preparing his articles. With a degree in Copy-editing and Proofreading, Deyan is able to ensure that his work writing for Gambling News is always up to scratch. This central registry marks a leap forward from the fragmented self-exclusion offerings of individual companies. By leveraging regulatory authority and industry cooperation, Ireland is working to deliver a more consistent and accessible lifeline to those who need it most.

The literature identified and organized into this cluster tended to start with identifying determinate indicators (such as chasing losses) and work through identifying how such an indicator could be manifested in transactional data. For instance, Deng et al. (2019) identified indicators and their manifestations in transactional data in the form of gambling frequencies (e.g., active betting days), intensity (e.g., average bet size), or trajectory (e.g., variation of wager size over time). Congruently chasing behaviors can be detected by examining cumulative gains and losses across a given period where the deposit amount is consistently increasing (Ma et al., 2014). Manifest content analysis was applied to the general financial wellbeing literature review result. Usually labeled as the ‘first order value of a data’, a manifest approach focuses on describing what is visibly observable in the data (Cash & Snider, 2014).

The growth of remote gambling globally places an even greater emphasis on the potential for hard-barrier systems and tools to limit gambling, and for the financial sector to make such measures available in consultation with the gambling sector and policymakers. This review recognizes that harm-minimization measures in land-based venues are not consistently applied to Internet gambling operators. Furthermore, systems and tools that operate only in land-based gambling venues may exacerbate inequalities in gambling https://gullybetofficial.com/ harms if hard barriers such as limiting access to ATMs are not accompanied by hard financial barriers online.