Danish gambling authority’s anti-problem gambling app improved

The Danish Gambling Authority has updated its anti-problem gambling app MitSpil, originally launched late last year, adding play-time and deposit tracking and danger level flags  based on the ratio of win to lose amounts.

Previously a purely educational app, MitSpil v.2 now also prompts players if they delay too long in updating their statistics, and generates an analysis of the user’s playing patterns and behaviour.

The app is intended to help the player put his or her gambling in the correct perspective and take responsibility for halting any developing trend toward compulsive gambling that the app identifies.

In related news, a new study by the National Problem Gambling Clinic (NPGC) reports that the number of mobile phone and tablet gamblers being treated for addiction has risen significantly in recent years.

Researchers found that while 24 percent of NPGC patients in 2012-13 were wrestling with a mobile gambling issue, this number had increased to 63 percent by 2016-2017 despite industry efforts to ameliorate the problem.

The total number of addicts referred to the NHS-supported clinic increased from 632 in 2012-13 to 778 in 2016-17.

“The use of mobile phones as platforms to gamble on over the preceding five years is not surprising given their ubiquity in society,” said Dr Neil Smith, the consultant clinical psychologist and service manager at the NPGC

The Remote Gambling Association, a trade body for online gambling companies, noted that technological advances have made it possible for operators  to better identify and advise problem gamblers, and encourage responsible gambling in their player communities.

The trade body additionally noted that software developers are producing a growing number of apps to assist mobile problem gamblers in blocking gambling sites on their devices.

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