REPSONSIBLE GAMING
The age of compliance When operating real-money gaming sites, ensuring all players are of legal age is crucial for complying with gaming laws and protecting minors. Companies have a responsibility and vested interest in keeping underage individuals off wagering platforms. Robust age verification is the primary tool companies have at their disposal to enforce underage gaming laws. • Don’t trust; verify ─ Asking users to self-report their age does little to discourage minors from participating in skill-based games. Instead, sites must implement robust document-based age verification. To create an account, a player should be required to upload images of their driver’s license, passport, or other government-issued identification. Sites should follow through by cross- checking names, photos, and dates of birth against public records. • Scan and deliver ─ Biometric scans add an extra layer of verification by linking identity to distinct physical characteristics. Though far from foolproof, this technique requires a player to project a live presentation of themself for facial recognition, iris scanning, or fingerprint comparison. These images would be compared to the identification cards previously submitted before the player is allowed to log into real-money gaming sites. However, the collection and use of such sensitive data brings up significant privacy concerns that companies must address transparently, as well as data security issues. • Location limits ─ Geofencing, IP mapping, and other location identification technologies can be used to prevent people in locations where activities are prohibited from accessing sites and to spotlight behaviors that point to possible underage access. For instance, sites could determine that a user often logs in from a library or other public space, indicating an attempt to escape parental supervision. Sophisticated geofencing can block logins from these locations. Or gaming sessions may take place from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. ─ the time between school being let
out and teens needing to be home for dinner.
• Friction ─ Sites can protect themselves further by introducing additional levels and instances of age verification. “Friction” during login and gameplay can detect and eliminate attempts by minors to access these platforms. Pop-up confirmation messages introduce friction by appearing randomly throughout a gaming session to catch underage players who circumvented the login process with fake credentials. Warnings and blocking mechanisms Gaming elements like flashy graphics, cartoony music, and fast-paced features may attract underage audiences by design. Responsible operators should implement policies to avoid enticing kids while enabling adult entertainment. Historically, many popular gaming sites lacked sufficient age protections. In 2002, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that many websites lacked adequate safeguards and warnings to prevent children and teenagers from placing illegal bets. In a survey of 100 popular online gambling platforms, the FTC found that one in five had no warnings for minors and most had disclaimers that were hard to find. The sites also lacked screening mechanisms to keep children out or had blocks that kids could easily get around. More than 20 years later, not much has improved. Today’s realistic images, videos, and embedded promotions still blur the lines between gaming content and advertising. So, opportunities persist for minors to get hooked by the hype without understanding the financial risks involved. Failure to establish rigorous age barriers threatens user safety and industry survival. Instead, several proactive controls can help sites demonstrate compliance. First, requiring robust age verification via government-issued IDs should front-load account security. Additionally, prominent warnings and gaming resources should populate across sites. Limiting promotional visibility
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IMGL MAGAZINE | APRIL 2024
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