In the gaming industry, there are various elements which make a jurisdiction one of choice. Over the years, Malta has become one of the most reputable gaming jurisdiction thanks to its reputation, favourable licence fee, costs and tax regime, flexibility and responsible gaming. 

The Malta Gaming Authority is at the forefront of responsible gaming. For instance, MGA-licensed operators need to have certain tools in place for all players, such as setting limits for deposits and losses on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Also operators need to prompt to take action about a player's current session time and winnings or losses during this time – to this effect, closing accounts permanently, or for a certain period is a must for all MGA operators.

Some other countries do not have these tools in place. For example, in Finland, where the Finnish government-owned Veikkaus holds a monopoly in the country, players can close their account, but ask for it to be opened again – that isn’t really the idea of closing account permanently to protect the players.

Sitting on laurels is never a good idea, so there are probably things on which the MGA can improve. 

But could MGA do even more? And how? Should the maximum bet per one spin in a slot machine be capped? Should the speed of one spin be limited? 

Of course, one question comes naturally – to what extent should the regulator set limits, so that the games are still fun but not causing problems? Also, it’s not only the regulator that should carry responsibility – players should also be responsible because, as with anything else from video games to social media, there are always those who find themselves dealing with problems of overuse. 

Many MGA licensed casinos are now using Trustly's Pay N' Play feature, which allows fast registration and fast payments and withdrawals. In Finland these so-called casinos without registration (in Finnish kasinot ilman rekisteröitymistä) have become very popular. One positive thing about these casinos is that players can close all their accounts on these kind of casinos by contacting Trustly. If all MGA casinos would use only this method, then players could close accounts on multiple casinos much easier. On the other hand, there are new competitors to Trustly who provide similar fast registration and payment features, such as ZimplerGo and Brite payments. And probably there will be more. In this case, players would need to contact these too.

One option is for MGA to set maximum yearly loss limit per player. Operators would not like this, but within this industry everyone needs to think about responsibility. The challenging part would be how to implement it across all operators. 

There is probably only one operator in the world who has done this: Ålands Penningautomatförening (Paf). Paf is an operator based on the Åland Islands, which belong to Finland but are autonomous. Paf has currently €25,000 loss limit per player per year, and just recently announced that they will reduce it to €20,000.

Disclaimer: Play responsibly. Players must be over 18. For help visit https://www.gamcare.org.uk/.