Rank Group Plc has praised the UK Government's White Paper on gambling legislation, stating that the long-awaited review has reached the objective of striking the right balance between “consumer freedoms and choice on the one hand, and protection from harm on the other.”

Free responsible gambling app BetBlocker has been approved as a charity within the United Kingdom, as it plans the latest stage of its growth strategy.

Following the latest approval the project, funded and developed by alternative dispute mediation service ThePogg.com, BetBlocker is focused on future growth as it dismisses the choice of charging users a fee

Duncan Garvie, manager of ThePogg, explained: “BetBlocker will now look for other parties within the industry that have a strong and focused commitment to responsible gambling and who put protecting vulnerable players at the core of their business model to cooperate with to ensure that the project has a bright future and reaches as many people as possible. 

“There are many organisations, both charitable and businesses, within the gambling industry that see providing assistance to those experiencing gambling addiction as a priority, and we have no doubt that cooperation with other groups will help ensure that BetBlocker continues to grow and develop in a manner that ensures that it offers the most useful service possible.”

BetBlocker allows users to control their access to over 6,700 gambling operator sites by activating the app and selecting the length of exclusion that they desire. Once activated, it restricts the device and the exclusion cannot be lifted until the period has concluded. 

Working outside of licenses, the exclusion also allows users to restrict even black market gambling services that it says would ordinarily ignore responsible gambling requests made by players.

Garvie added: “We started BetBlocker to assist vulnerable players who were complaining to our service about gambling operators. The project has proved to be far more popular that we ever expected and has expanded far beyond the original user-base it was intended to help. It has become abundantly clear that the service that BetBlocker offers is one that a large number of people could benefit from.

“Sustaining the BetBlocker project with a rapidly growing user base is a challenge that cannot be met by ThePogg.com Ltd alone. With over 40k downloads across the various platforms and an active user base of several thousand users on the mobile apps alone this is a project that needs to be recognised in its own right, outside of ThePogg if it is to reach its full potential and maximise the number of people it can help.”