'Parasitic' – judge slams Sky Betting & Gaming
A recent court ruling has found that Sky Betting & Gaming intentionally and illegally targeted a gambling addict.
The first-of-its-kind case has substantial implications for the wider industry, as well as data protection laws, personal culpability and gambling safeguards.
Summary
The claimant remains anonymous, but is a problem gambler who lost more than £45,000 with Sky Betting & Gaming. He claimed that the ordeal had cost him ten years of his life, and is seeking compensation for the misuse of his data.
The claimant alleged that Sky Betting & Gaming breached UK data protection law by collecting his personal data through cookies.
Massive data harvesting
It has been reported that Sky Betting & Gaming collected hundreds of thousands of pieces of personal data about the player, labelled him a ‘high value’ customer, and sent him nearly 1,400 personalised marketing emails offering free spins and bonus prizes. The player reportedly opened and engaged with nearly all of the emails.
Justice Collins Rice stated that the practices employed by Sky Betting & Gaming were “parasitic”. The High Court determined that, due to his addiction, the man’s ability to give consent was impaired.
Safeguards not applied
It was also determined that Sky Betting & Gaming had failed to apply the necessary safeguards to prevent such occurrences happening, and misused the man’s personal data to devastating effect.
The specific outcomes, including compensation terms, have not been decided.
Best practices
Here’s an overview of the best practices that Sky failed to adhere to, and what they should have done:
- Casinos should flag at-risk players and remove them from marketing lists. The player in question should have been excluded from promotional campaigns.
- Casinos should use gathered personal data for harm reduction and identifying players who require intervention. In this case, the data was used for exploitation.
- Casinos should provide support for gamblers who stop, rather than attempting to win them back.
- Casinos must ensure that customers can provide informed consent. In this case, it was ruled that the player could not provide this.
Aftermath and implications
This is a landmark ruling, and it raises some huge questions for the British gambling industry, its operators and players.
Industry response
Sky Betting & Gaming released a statement expressing that they “fundamentally disagree with this judgment” but will continue to make improvements to their safer gambling measures.
The claimant was represented by data rights agency AWO, who stated that the “ruling is a legal first for online marketing and the related legal principles and could have major implications for the multi-billion-pound online gambling sector in the UK and the online advertising industry as a whole”.
The AWO statement also highlighted the possibility that “not only SBG, but also other gambling companies, have been illegally profiling thousands – if not tens of thousands – of their vulnerable customers for years”.
The Coalition to End Gambling Ads described the levels of tracking and targeting within the industry as “frightening”, and stated that its members are “very concerned because we know this is widespread”.
Gambling With Lives, the anti-gambling charity, stated that companies like Sky Betting & Gaming “are using data and algorithms to target people with more incentives to gamble when they should be using that data to meaningfully intervene”.
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) did not comment specifically on the ruling, but urged casinos to review their data practices and pay additional attention to customer protection.
Media response
The Guardian has reported extensively on the case, with a few other outlets also picking up the story. It’s important to note that The Guardian has clear anti-gambling industry leanings, and has made this clear in the past.
The Guardian’s articles have regularly cited problem gambling statistics, including that England is home to “almost 1.6 million adults who gamble who may benefit from some type of treatment or support for harmful gambling”, referencing the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID).
Stats inconsistent
This statistic varies greatly depending on the source, and 1.6 million is definitely at the higher end of the spectrum. Estimates tend to vary from 0.3% to 2.5% of the UK population. This discrepancy suggests an inconsistency in research methods, and perhaps an unreliability in the reported figures. It should also be noted that, depending on the source of data, different agendas can be at play.
The Guardian also cites OHID’s 2023 estimates that “the annual number of excess suicide deaths in England associated with problem gambling or a gambling disorder was between 117 and 496”. This wide spread also suggests a possible weakness in the data and calls into the question the credibility of the source. To use an analogy, how reliable would you regard a weather app that said today’s high temperature would be somewhere between 11 and 27 degrees?
Where does culpability end?
There’s no doubt that labelling the claimant a ‘high value’ customer is deeply cynical and morally inexcusable. If casinos are conflating ‘high risk’ with ‘high value’, then this points to a sinister issue which needs to be addressed quickly.
However, the question of where individual culpability ends is also raised. Representatives of Sky Betting & Gaming are likely to draw attention to casinos’ limited accountability, and suggest that the claimant failed to take responsibility for his actions.
The claimant stated, “I lost ten years of my life to gambling. I believe I, and a lot of others, should have been protected better”. This statement is likely to draw criticism from advocates of individual responsibility.
On a related note, casinos can only know so much about their customers, and determining whether an individual is capable of providing truly informed consent is a nuanced matter.
It was ruled that the claimant was not functioning “on a fully autonomous basis at all”. However, he had not opted out of marketing, so perhaps Sky Betting & Gaming could not have known that his ability to provide informed consent was impaired.
This is a sensitive area, and likely one where a balance will need to be found and defined in legislation. Individual responsibility needs to come into the equation at some point, and there are sure to be some who feel that the claimant acted naively.
A legal precedent?
The outcome of the case is unconfirmed, but it seems highly likely that Sky Betting & Gaming will be forced to make amends and pay out to the claimant.
If this is the case, the ruling may serve as a precedent, triggering a flood of comparable cases citing this one. If regulators or claimants take action, casinos may end up forking out significant sums in compensation.
Wide-reaching implications
The ruling has broad implications for not only the gambling industry, but also for UK data protection law. It may have an impact on regulation and on future lawsuits, and new legislation may be introduced to better protect gamblers’ personal data.
This may involve the UKGC imposing strict rules about how casinos collect and use data, as well as the nature of that data. Amendments to legislation might prevent companies within and beyond the gambling industry from utilising personal data in a manipulative way.
It should be noted that the claimant’s gambling took place before the recent implementation of stake limits and financial background checks. It’s therefore possible that legislation is already in place that might have flagged the customer in question.
Conclusion
Casinos have an ethical responsibility to their players which includes using data responsibly, observing safer gambling practices, and protecting vulnerable players.
Sky Betting & Gaming has been found guilty of unlawful use of a player’s personal data, and of failing to intervene according to best practices.
The remedy hearing, in which Justice Collins Rice will determine the outcome of the case, is scheduled to take place later this year.
At that time, we can also expect to hear about whether regulators will be taking further action against casinos.
