Self Exclusion Technology Could Help US Poker Legalization Push

Online poker is banned throughout the United States except for four exceptions – Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The Keystone state only recently lifted the ban on online poker and is yet to launch its online poker industry.

There are a number of states who have long been debating whether to lift the ban on the online poker industry but there has not been a lot of progress as a number of obstacles keep cropping up.

One of these challenges is that the online gambling industry will increase the number of problem gamblers in the state. That challenge can now be effectively mitigated due to a new piece of self-exclusion technology that will give gamblers better control when it comes to self-exclusion.

GameSecure from Bencon Technologies has already gotten the attention of the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) with this innovative software. This new technology will allow problem gamblers to completely exclude themselves from all online gambling sites in an entire region. In the past, problem gamblers had to exclude themselves site-by-site. With GameSecure, this process is made a lot easier.

Bencon Technologies hopes that their new technology will make it easier for problem gamblers to exclude themselves and go on to give online gambling lobbyists more firepower when it comes to pushing for the legalization of online poker throughout the country. The NCPG is putting its support behind it and has been calling for a widespread exclusion system for a long time now.

In a statement, Keith Whyte, Executive Director of the NCPG, said

We really support this initiative. GameSecure provides a timely and much-needed option for regulators and operators to use technology to solve a major problem in regulated gaming today. Currently, even well-intentioned self-exclusion programs fail players and operators because they do not provide coverage and support seamlessly across a jurisdiction.

iGaming Operators Will Now Have Better Control

The developments in responsible gambling policy have been mostly from the online gambling sector. Unlike land-based gambling sites, online gambling sites have better control of their operations and have been able to implement policies that are impossible for offline casinos. Some of the policies that online gambling has pioneered to stop problem gamblers are a requirement for 100 percent verified identification, the addition of deposit and loss limits, and the implementation of cooling off periods.

Dealing with problem gambling is also made easier by the fact that a lot of data is gathered by online casinos. Researchers then use this data to look at what is working or not in terms of dealing with problem gambling. iGaming operators can now adopt this technology to ensure that they fully comply with gaming regulations in their respective jurisdictions.