Nine in 10 gambling websites ‘breaching data protection law’

Mark Mansfield

Nearly nine in 10 UK-licensed gambling websites failed to comply with data protection requirements governing online tracking, according to new research.

Researchers at Swansea University’s Gambling Research, Education and Treatment (GREAT) Centre examined all 624 casino and sports betting websites licensed by the Gambling Commission.

They concluded that 86% were operating in breach of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with many websites using designs which steered customers towards accepting tracking.

Two-thirds of the sites – 67% – began collecting personally identifiable data before users had consented, including sending unique user identifiers to third-party analytics and marketing platforms.

Almost a quarter – 24% – provided no way for users to refuse tracking, while 2% displayed no consent banner at all.

Researchers also found only 29% of websites made rejecting tracking as easy as accepting it, with users on some sites required to make as many as 15 clicks to refuse.

Most of the consent banners contained so-called “dark patterns” – design techniques intended to steer people towards a particular choice.

These included visually emphasising the accept button, found on 60% of sites, hiding the reject option behind another layer on 47%, and pre-selecting less privacy-friendly settings on 29%.

Researchers then tested the impact of the different designs on 615 UK online gamblers using a simulated betting website.

Participants were shown one of six different consent banners.

The design most commonly used by gambling websites made participants three to four times more likely to accept tracking than a neutral alternative which allowed them to refuse with one click.

Those who accepted tracking also rated their decision as a substantially poorer reflection of their actual privacy preferences than those who rejected it.

The researchers said the findings were particularly significant because information gathered through online tracking can be used for personalised gambling marketing.

They argue that some of the characteristics used to identify commercially valuable customers overlap with behavioural signs associated with gambling harm.

The study, published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports, was led by Swansea University PhD student Jack McGarrigle and supervised by Professor Simon Dymond, Dr Martyn Quigley and Dr Jamie Torrance.

‘Stark’

Mr McGarrigle said: “We audited every licensed gambling site in the UK and the picture was stark. Most aren’t giving customers a fair choice about tracking.

“Some make it a single click to accept and up to fifteen to refuse.

“Our follow-up experiment showed this isn’t incidental; it works exactly as you’d expect, nudging people toward decisions they don’t actually agree with.”

Professor Dymond added: “Our research shows that the data being harvested through these designs isn’t neutral, it’s the same kind of behavioural signal that can flag risk.

“Getting consent right isn’t just a data protection issue for the industry, it’s an important part of preventing gambling harm.”

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