IAGR launches global illegal gambling awareness campaign for November

The International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) has announced its first Illegal Gambling Awareness Week (IGAW), a global campaign to raise consumer awareness of the risks of unlicensed online gambling. The campaign runs from 9 to 13 November, the association said.

According to the IAGR, the initiative asks its own membership, along with consumer protection bodies, responsible gambling organisations and other relevant groups, to spread awareness of illegal gambling's dangers. Consumers are being told, as the campaign's core message, to verify a site holds a licence before they gamble on it.

A dedicated portal, CheckBeforeYouPlay.org, forms part of the push; there, a player can type in a gambling site's URL and learn if that operator holds a licence. Before IGAW begins, every IAGR member will receive campaign resources, among them short videos, social media content and key talking points, with English and Spanish versions of each.

Ben Haden, president of the IAGR, described online gambling's global reach as making it a challenge regulators share. He argued that aligning consumer messaging would improve public understanding of the value of local licensing and point people toward trustworthy information before they deal with an operator.

Kevin Mullally, who became the IAGR's first CEO earlier this year, also backed the initiative. In his view, it will push consumers to look into websites carefully before they spend money or hand over personal details. He added that users of unlicensed sites could find winnings left unpaid, few avenues for settling disputes and their information misused.

The association further warned that responsible gambling safeguards found with locally licensed operators are absent from illegal sites. It added that people who gamble on unlicensed platforms could, without realising it, be financing criminal organisations tied to drug trafficking, human trafficking or terrorist financing.

Mullally observed that visibility is frequently confused with trust. A polished website or a familiar brand, he said, may leave consumers feeling confident even when they have no idea whether the operator is properly licensed where they are. The goal, he explained, is for people to make checking a site's licensing status a habit before they open an account or deposit money.