CEN is an official not-for-profit body responsible for developing standards in Europe. It is officially recognised as a European Standardisation Organisation alongside ETSI, the European telecommunications Standards Institute.

The proposal to establish the standard was submitted to CEN by the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) with the aim of supporting safer online gambling and strengthening player protection in Europe.

EGBA explains that markers of harm are changes in a player’s online gambling behaviour, such as speed, time, and duration of play, that can be used to help identify risky or harmful gambling behaviour. These markers are essential to the further development of effective early intervention mechanisms aimed at preventing gambling-related harm. Many organisations, including the health sector and gambling operators, already use markers of harm, but there is no commonly agreed list of behaviours which constitute markers of harm. The EGBA proposal to create a CEN standard aims to resolve that problem at the European level by creating a standardised list of markers of harm.

The CEN vote took place in December 2022, and work to create the standard is expected to commence in Q1 of 2023. The CEN process is designed to allow for a wide range of European stakeholders, including academics, health experts, gambling authorities, operators, and consumer organisations, to participate in the discussions via the national delegations represented in CEN. While the final CEN standard will be a voluntary tool, it could also be made legally binding through legislation. CEN says that around 30% of its European Standards that are initiated by stakeholders become mandated by the EU Commission in the framework of EU legislation. To read EGBA’s press release in full, click here.