After years of nearly unprecedented growth, the UK online gambling market has been hit severely by a variety of legislation. Online casinos must also deal with many threats that are affecting their profitability. Let’s take a closer look at what challenges the industry is facing right now - and might have to face for years to come. Player Verification and Localisation One of the most major recent changes in legislation in the UK gambling industry is the policy that dictates that every player that the UK based now must go through more stringent identification and verification processes than ever before. The consequences here are two-fold. First obligating online casinos to identify UK-based players using new online casinos more aggressively limits them against the competition, which doesn’t have to bother with the issue. Second, longer and more strenuous identification processes might deter otherwise willing subscribers. Cybersecurity Issues Cybersecurity remains a major threat to the online gambling industry. The industry has recently been hit with a bevy of high profile cyber attacks, which often were launched from offshore anonymous accounts. This has pushed the industry to invest more and more in cyber security and to try new ways to circumvent the issue. However, hackers are getting more and more sophisticated and the cost of constantly updating or completely overhauling defences is putting a dent into their bottom line. Hacking Risks One of the most direct cyber security threats is hacking. All websites are eventually prone to attacks and no coding is 100% fool proof. Hacking attacks may come in many forms. Some may be purely malicious, which was the case with the recent string of DDOS attacks against big-name companies and government organizations. DDOS attacks are used mainly to slow down or completely shut down service by overloading the casino’s servers. But, more targeted attacks aimed at gaining gamers’ personal information are even more damaging and could potentially not only ruin a casino’s reputation but also open them to litigation. The industry has had to invest in military grade protection and advanced encryption to fend off identity thieves, but attacks are still a constant threat. Gaming Integrity Game integrity is another challenge the online gaming industry has to deal with. Beyond the usual threats posed by viruses and other forms of malicious software, they also have to worry about the use of third party software used to recognize certain patterns and give users recommendations on how to play hands or when to place bets. Algorithms and random number generators have to remain impenetrable, but hackers are constantly coming up with new more advanced software. Many have tried to ring fence their games by hosting them on completely different servers, which has been partially successful in many cases. The UK online casino industry will have to find a way to deal with these challenges if it still wants to remain viable. However, it is doing all the steps necessary to comply with legislation and has always shown to be resilient in the face of change.
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