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Presenting a novel and broad compliance challenge, a EU accessibility law that comes into effect next month will require gambling operators to ensure their products are easy to use for people with a wide range of access needs.
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) comes into force on June 28, 2025, requiring a huge number of online services to make sweeping updates to their software.
The stakes for failing to comply are severe. Individual member states were responsible for setting penalties in their own transposition of the law and many nations have established serious enforcement measures for falling short.
In Spain, companies can be fined up to €600,000 for the most serious infractions, while fines could reach as much as 5 percent of annual turnover in Italy for companies with a yearly turnover of more than €500m.
As these varied enforcement regimes show, the specifics of complying with the EAA will vary from country to country, depending on how it has interpreted the act. However, there are many key pillars of the legislation that are applicable across the board.
These include ensuring that websites and digital platforms can be easily navigated through a variety of different methods. This includes ensuring that services can be operated exclusively by keyboard as well as embedding voice control and screen-reading technology.
Text also needs to be scalable and high contrast to aid people with visual impairments, while all pieces of multimedia content should have subtitles and other additions to help those with auditory issues.
As ever with the EU’s broad consumer-focused legislation, the rules apply to any company making their products available within the union, not just those headquartered in a member country.
Safeguarding The Entire Journey
The real challenge of the EAA may be its breadth. Everything from customer service interactions to "Know Your Customer" (KYC) needs to be considered through an accessibility lens.
“For gambling operators, this means that accessibility obligations extend across the entire customer journey,” explained Andrei Cosma, a partner at Baciu Partners in Bucharest.
The act also creates significant new challenges for gambling suppliers.
While operators are directly on the line for ensuring compliance, in many cases, they will be completely dependent on their B2B partners to ensure that content meets the required standard.
Game suppliers and platform providers face significant technical challenges integrating the EAA’s various accessibility requirements into their products. Overnight on June 28, these new facets of software design essentially became basic requirements for selling into the EU.
Another hurdle that will be familiar to those who have grappled with EU legislation, like the overlapping Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, is the lack of fine detail in the legislation.
The EAA does not “prescribe a rigid set of technical measures or solutions”, explained Cosma.
“Instead, compliance is assessed against harmonised European standards, notably EN 301 549, which incorporates the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at Level AA.
“While this allows some degree of flexibility and innovation, it also places the burden on operators to exercise professional judgment in identifying, implementing and validating the most appropriate solutions, often requiring investment in specialised audits, testing and expertise.”
Accessibility demands new thinking
In Cosma’s view, the obstacles are more than just technical. Compliance with the law, he says, requires serious internal planning.
“In essence, the real challenge goes beyond technical adjustments. It is organisational and strategic, compelling operators to rethink how they design, deliver and sustain their services,” he told Vixio.
That diffused challenge is exemplified by the requirements of the EAA that go beyond software changes.
Gambling businesses in the EU will be required to publish an accessibility statement, which must be publicly available and describe how their services comply with the law’s requirements.
Almost every way in which an operator might interact with its customers falls under the purview of the act, including terms and conditions and game rules. Failing to provide these documents in a way that can be accessed by screen readers, for example, would amount to a compliance failure.
Despite this considerable new regulatory burden, Cosma is hopeful that better meeting the needs of European consumers will ultimately lead to positive momentum for the industry.
“This is not merely a compliance exercise, but an opportunity to tap into an insufficiently explored market segment,” he said.
Ensuring good compliance across the sector will also help gambling’s sometimes tarnished reputation, noted Cosma.
“Improving accessibility also tends to improve the general user experience for all customers, not only those with disabilities,” he said.
“Many features that are required for accessibility, such as clear navigation, consistent interfaces, readable text, or alternative formats for multimedia content, also make platforms easier and more pleasant to use for the general public.”
