The Gambling Commission is taking a pro-active approach to its engagement with the industry by undertaking a programme of visits to licensed gambling businesses. Much more than a cursory facility visit a 15-strong team spent a total of two-days at the MERKUR venue in New Street Birmingham.

The Gambling Commission has welcomed its recent visit to the MERKUR Slots venue in New Street Birmingham describing it as ‘an invaluable opportunity’ to have open discussions with staff working in ‘a licensed gambling business.’

Announcing the visit on its Linkedin page the Commission confirmed: “Colleagues from our contact centre and communications team have recently taken part in site visits to a MERKUR Group adult gaming centre to gain a deeper understanding of how the sites are managed, and what the experience is like for consumers.”

Explaining what the visit comprised the post continued: “Staff from Merkur showed us their range of slot machines, talking through safety and operating procedures. The visit offered an insight for the contact centre team in particular who take thousands of calls a month from consumers, many of whom use adult gaming centres and slot machines…..with colleagues able to ask questions with consumers and businesses in mind.”

Expanding on the visit, MERKUR Casino’s Head of Compliance Amanda Kiernan said: “We welcomed 15 members of the Gambling Commission’s contact centre over two days.

“It was a very meaningful visit with the Commission keen to learn more about the processes that we have in place regarding issues such as how we monitor consumer spend, our interaction procedures including the markers we use, how staff monitor machines, the recording of self-exclusions and how we deal with in-venue complaints.”

Reflecting on the broader benefits of the visit she noted: “As a major retailer we are very keen to support the regulator in any way that we can.  On the basis that having a more detailed understanding of the land based gaming sector will ultimately be reflected in more effective and appropriate regulation, visits like this should be welcomed as an important initiative on behalf of the Commission.”

“I think the contact team staff left our New Street venue with a good understanding of how we operate, how we meet the licensing objectives and how we take care of our customers, including making sure that they are informed about how the machines work as well as our player protection initiatives.”