iGaming Ontario Outlines Plans for New Self-Exclusion Program
iGaming Ontario (iGO) officials announced this week the group’s plan to build a safer and more enjoyable experience for iGaming players in the province, especially players of new Ontario online casinos. A new self-exclusion program is part of that plan and the governmental group is seeking bids to help build a centralized solution enabling players to more easily take a break using a single registration process.
iGO plans to seek proposals in early 2024 and hope for a self-exclusion program that’s coordinated across all regulated iGaming casino operators.
“The successful bidder will be expected to develop and implement a centralized self-exclusion system that integrates with all operator systems and supports players’ self-exclusion registration, renewal, and reinstatement,” iGO noted in announcing the plan.
The regulator outlined some key principles iGO is hoping to incorporate into the final product and some of those include:
- Player focused – Providing options to players to support their commitment to take a break, to ensure processes are easy to use with minimal barriers and challenges, and to offer a seamless connection to relevant support services.
- Supportive – Delivers and executes the program in a non-stigmatized, non-judgmental manner – supportive and encouraging so that players feel good about registering in self-exclusion.
- Transparent – Ensuring expectations and consequences for players and operators are clear and information is comprehensive and well-promoted.
- Secure – Ensures player information is securely protected and shared only with relevant employees for the purposes of administering the program.
- Robust – Implements strong processes and procedures bolstered by secure, responsive, and highly-available technology to enable an effective program that supports a player’s goals.
- Viable – Develops systems and procedures that are manageable and practical for operators to implement.
With these principles in mind, iGO seeks interest from companies able to build modern, innovative, secure cloud-based SaaS (software as a service) solutions “that are high-profile, public-facing and critically important to building and maintaining the trust and confidence of a wide range of stakeholders.”
The successful bidder will partner with iGO on a multi-year program by leveraging modern, innovative technology, the regulator notes. iGO further outlined features the group seeks for an effective centralized self-exclusion solution including:
- Allowing players to create and manage their self-exclusion profiles and including Know Your Client (KYC) identity verification.
- Providing players with easy access to self-exclusion at any time, including while gambling on any regulated igaming website.
- Having registration, renewal, and reinstatement processes that are intuitive, simple, and offer supporting information.
