About this app
About Blobsters Clusterbuster
Helios, a specialist consultant in gambling web traffic, analysed the number of black market websites actively marketing across the 28 markets included in the report, between March and May.
This data was cross referenced with SimilarWeb traffic analysis to confirm the scale of activity. In some markets, the number of illegal sites being actively marketed was much higher than those that have local licences to operate.
This was true of France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Cyprus, Belgium, Spain, among others.
What is Blobsters Clusterbuster?
Prime Minister Andy Burnham recent proposed a package of measures that would repeal the established “aim to permit” rule for betting shops and 24-hour slot machine arcades across Great Britain, removing a presumption in favour of granting permission for such venues.
AGCs in England that offer round-the-clock access to gambling machines will instead require planning approval.
The prime minister is also considering imposing an increased tax on gaming machines in the UK, based on a proposal from the Social Market Foundation. This could be seen in the upcoming autumn budget.
What is Blobsters Clusterbuster?
The text also prohibits bets placed using credit cards, the use of predictive models to identify moments of greater vulnerability, and platform design mechanisms that hinder a conscious decision to stop betting, leave the service, or activate limits and blocks. Operators must maintain permanent alerts about compulsive gambling, indebtedness and asset loss, and adopt verifiable protocols for identifying risky behaviour.
The proposal establishes criteria for classifying products according to their potential for harm. Among the characteristics considered are instantaneous or short-lived results, continuous repetition at short intervals, use of random mechanisms to determine the outcome, intermittent rewards, near-miss incentives, incentives to recover losses and features that make it difficult to stop betting or induce successive, impulsive, or increasingly valuable bets.
Products offered to the public must undergo prior evaluation by a competent body of the Federal Executive Branch, to be defined in regulations. Products classified as high-risk will be subject to specific harm reduction measures. Products with excessive risk may not be offered. This category includes products with outcomes determined by random mechanisms, continuous cycles and variable rewards, such as roulette, slot machines, collision games and simulated virtual sports.
