Simo opened up the discussion with an overview of the evolution of responsible
gaming tools over the past decade and outlined the factors that are driving the
adoption of new responsible gaming tools. Whilst regulation continues to be the
major factor driving innovation and adoption in responsible gaming, there are increasingly more examples of how commercial B2C operators are adopting
innovative and new advanced tools to help to protect vulnerable players in the absence of
regulation.
For example, Joachim Hauesler, head of responsible gaming at bwin.party, the
world's largest listed commercial B2C internet gambling operator, described how bwin.party are
using algorithms to detect problematic gambling behaviour to meet regulatory
requirements in the Spanish iGaming market, specifically to support decisions
as to whether players should be allowed to increase limits. Also Hillevi
from Betsson, the Swedish internet gambling B2C and B2B operator, discussed a
new online self-help tool that Betsson is piloting with their players which
provides proactive online support from their players who feel they are at risk of problem gambling. The
support is provided by an independent treatment provider and is voluntary, and
any player information given to the treatment provider is confidential and not
made available to Betsson. Both of these are great examples of how the
commercial sector is seeing the benefits of implementing more personalized
responsible gaming tools to help protect vulnerable players, whilst also building their brand equity and customer sustainability. We think it's very encouraging to see some of the recommendations from our industry expert review paper on CSR in gambling written in 2010 now being implemented in the market today.
Connie Jones then opened up the panel discussion with the audience. Much of the
interest and questioning was around how B2C operators were using predictive
analytics to better understand player behaviors to make personalized
interventions. A topic that was discussed in the previous panel surfaced again
too - how should operators best share data on self-exclusion? There
appeared unanimous agreement on the need for centralized self-exclusion approaches, with
Hillevi highlighting the approach to central self-exclusion adopted by the Danish
internet gaming market. Simo also challenged the panel further, asking whether at
some point in the future operators should collaborate and share not just
self-exclusion data but also other player data, such as deposit and timing
limits, to offer a unified responsible gaming platform across all operators for players. Whilst it's far to say this suggestion didn't receive overwhelming support from the panel, we feel it's another 'blue sky' thinking idea, that along with the adoption of universal predictive algorithms that was discussed previously, could one day become a standard practice in future regulated gaming markets.
