The UK's online gambling industry is being investigated by the country's competition watchdog to test whether millions of customers are being treated fairly.

The Competitions and Markets Authority has stepped in after the Gambling Commission raised concerns about a raft of potential breaches of consumer law, "including misleading promotions and unfair terms being used by firms to block players' payouts." The move follows a series of complaints from punters, who claimed that certain sites are deliberately making their terms obscure, and payouts harder to come by. According to the Times, customers have lost as much as £3.5 billion in this way.

On Friday, as a first step to crackdown on businesses that flout the rules, the CMA has used consumer protection legislation to issue information notices to various online casinos. These firms will now have to provide evidence that they're complying with the law; if it finds otherwise, the regulator will be able to take them to court under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Online gamblers are also being asked to provide evidence. CMA consumer enforcement director Nisha Arora said:

Gambling inevitably involves taking a risk, but it shouldn't be a con. We're worried players are losing out because gambling sites are making it too difficult for them to understand the terms on which they're playing, and may not be giving them a fair deal. We are now investigating to see whether firms are breaking the law.
Around 5.5 million Britons gamble online and they must be treated fairly. We've heard worrying complaints suggesting people may be lured into signing up for promotions with little chance of winning because of unfair and complex conditions. We're now working closely with the Gambling Commission to examine this more closely.
According to Sarah Harrison, the head of the Gambling Commission, operators are writing "unfair" terms and conditions designed to "bamboozle rather than help the customer make informed choices."

Gambling, by its very nature, is always going to involve risk but customers must have faith that if they win, they will not end up feeling that the deck is stacked against them because of an obscure condition that they did not properly understand. We approached the CMA to work with them to address issues in the gambling sector and we are delighted to have agreed a joint programme of work to ensure terms are fair and transparent.
The government is particularly concerned that players are being "locked into complex and strict requirements linked to gaming promotions that are difficult to understand and may be unachievable," which can prevent them from withdrawing their deposit and force them to play for longer.

Bookies, meanwhile, have "a wide discretion to cancel bets or alter odds after bets have been accepted" if they've made a mistake when the odds are first set. Finally, certain gambling companies set restrictive terms and time limits on players' ability to challenge their decisions, which might be unlawful.

Brian Chappell of gambling pressure group Justice for Punters welcomed the investigation. He told Ars he thinks "we are going to see significant change" in the industry.

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"Online gambling is a huge business," he said. "It has to be fair for the customer, but unfair T&Cs are stopping people obtain what they think they have signed up for, and worse still sometimes makes withdrawal of winnings very difficult."

Online gambling is a major growth industry in the UK. It's worth £4 billion per year to the economy, while the CMA says it's grown by 146 percent since 2009, and that more than 5.5 million people "regularly" use sports betting and online casinos.

Ars sought comment from the Remote Gambling Association—the trade body that covers the online gambling industry—but it hadn't responded at the time of publication.

This is a reprint from arstechnica.co.uk. to view the original, click here.