In countries like Europe, online gaming and gambling are considered some of the most sought-after pastime activities. This is for the fact that gambling is not only profit-yielding but also spikes up the dopamine levels giving a kick to the reward system of the brain.
Additionally, the investment of the citizens in gambling at properly licensed sources leads the government to gather a huge revenue at the end of the year. The gambling industry in the UK is one of the leading industries to be experiencing a hike in growth with every passing year making it a multi-billion dollar industry in comparison to the world economy. But now, the UK government is trying to help its citizens control their online gambling and addiction.
Similar to the US government Do Not Call Registry, GamStop (not to be confused with GameStop) is a free service that lets UK citizens put controls in place to help restrict their online gambling activities. GamStop is a free service for users. GamStop is available to anyone resident within the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Northern Ireland) only.
As internet usage experienced widespread popularity in the 90s, a number of online gambling sites grew both legal and illegal. The UK was indeed one of the centers from where the industry flourished for it being one of the most financially affluent regions of the world. The industry undoubtedly supports the government from an economic perspective but the population has reaped major consequences in terms of financial losses and debts falling prey to the ill effects of unsupervised gambling activities. After all, the huge amount of revenue generated did come with a cost that the government of the UK had to pay.
The United Kingdom Gambling Commission commonly addressed as UKGC is known to be one of the most effective gambling regulators of the world that take care of security. Considering the fact of how highly profitable the gambling industry of the UK is, it is quite understandable why it is essential to consider taking major measures to keep the citizens away from problematic gambling habits. The commission regularly comes up with innovative techniques to curb the side effects of gambling-related issues experienced by people to check the after-effects by implementing GamStop a free service that lets you put controls in place to help people restrict their online gambling activities.
About GamStop
GamStop is a self-exclusion scheme introduced by the UK government for the sake of restoring the safety of gamblers within the region of the United Kingdom. This helps problematic gamblers to keep away from gambling activities for a certain amount of time for their own good whenever it is realized that their interest in gambling is turning into an addiction.
The services provided by GamStop are limited to the operators registered under the UK government and licensed by the UKGC. Therefore, some non GamStop casinos exist and are fully available for customers from the United Kingdom. You can check more at CasinoGap.org about this. Although the initial plan was to launch the program in April of 2018, the scheme became effective from the 31st of March 2020. The UK gamblers can avail the services absolutely free of cost. The period of exclusion can vary from 6 months to a period of five years.
The GamStop scheme is governed by the National Online Self Exclusion Scheme Limited which is a nonprofit authority determined to eliminate addictive gambling and reverse its ill effects.
Working Mechanism of GamStop API
From the day of the scheme being effective, that is March 31st, 2020, all the licensed and completely regulated entities associated with gambling operations within the region of the United Kingdom were expected to voluntarily integrate with the GamStop self-exclusion scheme to continue being legally operated. This includes the incorporation of GamStop API into the system. This marked the healthy operation of the gambling industry in the UK ensuring services to every gambler playing at the registered sites. Furthermore, players are now granted the power to block and distance themselves from every legally operating gambling site by registering themselves to the program.
First of all, a player willing to benefit from the scheme has to register himself using several personal details like name, address, phone number, and so on at the official website. These relevant details are subjected to confirmation by the player himself to finally get hold of the self-exclusion services. Efforts are required from both parties namely players and operators as it is absolutely necessary for the operators to launch the GamStop API to automatically get the registered player blocked from their gaming platform. After the signing process by the player, it takes 24 hours at most to become effective and block the player from accessing any online gambling portals registered under the UKGC. Players can voluntarily choose the duration of the self-exclusion, although once self-exclusion becomes effective it is almost impossible to reverse it.
Final Words
It is essential to be mentioned that the registered players are also blocked from the National Lottery services offering instant wins. But on the contrary, the exclusion scheme does not hinder the entry of players into any site offering National Lottery draw games like Thunderball, Lotto, and so on.
