As soon as a casino player, whether an online, mobile or land based one requests a self exclusion, then their request should be honoured immediately and their access to the gambling facilities at any casino site, venue or app should be declined.
The whole idea behind a self exclusion is that the player is admitting to a gambling site or venue operator that they have a problem gambling, and are requesting that they are not allowed to continue to gamble in any shape or form at that operator’s sites or venues.
In the UK, Rank Group, who own and operate amongst other things the Grosvenor Casinos chain of land based casinos and the online and mobile variants of those venues has just been hit with a massive £500,000 fine, for failing to protect one of their former players.
The player who has not been named lives outside of the UK, however when he made the conscious decision to stop gambling at casinos operated by the Rank Group, initially the request was honoured and he was duly banned from gambling at their land based and online and mobile casinos.
However, for reasons that lack all known logic, one of the casino managers then made a visit to the gamblers home, and ultimately requested that his self exclusion be lifted, which is a clearly not a usual turn of events.
The fine the UK Gambling Commission hit the Rank Group with was for their failing to protect that player, and also offering him a line of credit in their land based and online casino.
In fact that player then went on to gamble and lose a mind blowing £1milllion in a 24 hour period at their casinos, which is somewhat shocking especially as he was displaying very obvious signs of having a gambling addiction problem and had even requested a self exclusion!
