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The UK Gambling Commission has initiated an inquiry into securing player funds and has given operators time until December 4th to come up with suggestions before instituting a final ammendment to its current licence condition in April 2014. At the moment, no guidelines are in place at the UK regulatory body regarding the way player funds are to be handled.
The issue has never been discussed properly since there were so few operators holding a UK license, but things seem to have changed ever since the UK decided to make drastic changes to its regulatory terms and conditions. According to data compiled by the UKGC, between 2011 and 2012 there was a combined player fund pool worth almost £163 million. This will definitely increase once the UKGC introduces its new gambling act requiring strict regulation of all operators accepting players from the UK.
According to the same data, the most vulnerable gaming sector has been poker (probably because of the Black Friday scandal). It also notes that despite this vulnerability, not many player funds have been lost (which might be a hint to Pokerstars taking charge over player deposits of Full Tilt Poker when it took over the company after Black Friday).
The proposed methods so far include the following six options:
1) Funds are held in segregated bank accounts
2) Funds are held in a “Quistclose” trust
3) Funds are insurred against insolvency
4) Funds are held in an independent trust account
5) Funds are held by the regulator
6) Funds are managed under a set of specific rules