The British Columbia Lottery Corporation, or the organization responsible for the provision of gambling options in the Canadian province of British Columbia, seems to have failed to carry out reviews on potential negative impacts prior to launching several online gambling products and casino projects.
Under British Columbian gambling regulations, the BCLC is required to perform such reviews on any gambling-related products and projects to be initiated within the province’s borders. However, according to an internal audit, the corporation has omitted to include important information in the said reviews over the past several years.
Here it is also important to note that the practice of providing corporate social responsibility assessments has been established so as for regulatory bodies and individuals to be able to look at the risk a certain product may carry and in what way it could affect customers with indications of problem gambling behavior.
Annually, the BCLC performs approximately 2,000 such assessments in order to remove any imagery that may appeal to minors and potential gambling addicts and to make sure that no products and related advertising campaigns contain messaging that glamorizes gambling in an excessive and explicit manner.
Following the internal audit, auditors pointed out that the importance of the reviews is indisputable and not being carried out in a proper manner may seriously harm BCLC’s reputation of a gambling provider that considers the promotion of responsible gambling an important element in its activities.
Examples of assessments not carried out in the proper manner include a case when two slot game themes were submitted for a corporate review without containing critical information and an instance of BCLC-related social media pages lacking in important details about responsible gambling. Both issues were attended to in due time but yet, they were indicative of the necessity for certain improvements to be made in the way the corporation managed its socially responsible gambling policy.
According to local regulatory bodies and officials, the BCLC needs to ramp up its responsible gambling initiatives, to provide more information about the risks that may arise from gambling, and to make sure that players that have excluded themselves from playing do not have access to gambling facilities.
