From 31 October 2018, we’re introducing some new standards for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) providers in the gambling industry. An ADR can help you if you’re not happy with the result when you complain to a gambling business. The service is free for you to use. You can find out how to contact the ADR provider from the gambling business.

We hope that these standards will help you to have confidence in the service that ADR providers give you, and to understand better what’s happening to your complaint during the process. Matt Halden, our Consumer Advocacy Specialist explains more.

In our new standards, we expect ADR providers to:

• consider as many complaints as possible, and let you know quickly if your complaint is one they can’t help with
• tell you when they receive your complaint, and update you when they have all the information from the gambling business that they need to start looking at it
• keep you updated throughout the process so you know what stage your complaint has reached
• make sure you know you have a right to ask to see any information from the gambling business about your complaint (unless this conflicts with other law or regulations)
• take into account your needs when they contact you, including any needs around accessibility
• provide information about what happens at the end of the process, including whether you can appeal
• have a process you can use if you need to complain about the service you have received from them

We also expect providers to publish information to help you have confidence in the process and their service, including information:

• to show you how they are independent of the gambling business, including information about how they are funded
• about the service they provide, including their methods and timescales, and performance data to show how they are performing against targets

We’ll be monitoring how ADR providers perform against the new standards, and we’ll take action if we don’t think a provider is meeting them.