A few days ago the UK Gambling Commission set and published information on how costumers can identify the self-assessed level of protection by gambling operators in connection to customer funds. The legally licensed operators by the Commission have until the end of this year’s December to assess themselves against three “Level of Protection” categories for customer funds, namely basic, medium and high.
According to the basic level, there is segregation of customer funds or in other words, these funds are kept in separate accounts from the business accounts, but in the event of insolvency they will form part of the assets of the business. Such accounts include bank, investment or other type of accounts.
In the medium level, customer funds are also segregated from business accounts and there are arrangements to ensure that assets in the customer accounts are distributed to players in case of insolvency. Such arrangements in the medium category are associated with insurance and Quistclose accounts.
In the high level, there are independent trust accounts where customer funds are held and they are verified and controlled by a third party trustee.
Both remote and non remote licensed operators have to clearly convey their rating of protection level to customers in their terms and conditions.