Hearts and Minds: The responsible gambling strategies winning back customer trust

Watching an industry develop from small beginnings to a global phenomenon is a lot like seeing a child grow up and find its place in the world. It develops a conscience and a system of values in the same way that an industry develops the rules and regulations that govern it. The gambling industry is no exception with regards to this, especially in the UK, where it has risen from small beginnings in 2005 with the passing of the Gambling Act, to pre-eminence in the worldwide gambling industry.

But as an industry rises, so has the need to take better care of it and the lifeblood of the sector: its players. Using the UK market as an example, the Gambling Commission (GC) lists three main objectives at the core of its licensing approach: preventing gambling from being a source of crime; ensuring gambling is conducted in a fair and open way; and protecting children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited. While the first stands alone, objectives two and three are interlinked.

Protection of players has been at the heart of the industry since its founding, but as the industry has matured, so has the emphasis shifted from protection being an afterthought to a prime motivator in both enforcement and regulatory activities. This spur has not been an overnight one; it has been one motivated by rising problem gambling rates both in the UK and abroad. In the UK, latest statistics reveal that 0.8% of the population would describe themselves as problem gamblers.

Addressing the issue

In recent years, the prime avenue for preventing problem gambling was self-exclusion. In essence, trusting the individual to make a qualified judgement that their own playing has become a problem. It puts the responsibility squarely on the players’ shoulders. However, the disorder of problem gambling is just that, a disorder. A problem gambler cannot control their addiction or their desire to satisfy that need, so they cannot be counted on to take an objective approach to their activities.

In the same way that we allow mature individuals to drink alcohol, we allow mature individuals to gamble, whilst not testing their responsibility to do so. And as with the alcohol industry, the companies that provide that perceptibly addictive activity must do more to espouse a responsibility philosophy, for the benefit of that consumer. The problem is that media scrutiny has created a distrust of gambling companies, who are perceived as greedy, cheating businesses that only profit from the misery of problem gambling. In fact, the latest GC survey on gambling participation in the UK found that only 33% of those surveyed trusted gambling operators.

The recent Responsible Gambling Week was billed as a way to demonstrate to the public that the gambling industry is committed to ensuring players are both protected from becoming problem gamblers and remedying the lack of trust in the industry. Yet despite a concerted and centralised effort by regulators in tandem with operators to enforce a responsible gambling message, there is a practical disparity in how responsible gambling is handled by each operator. It’s clear there is no silver bullet to eradicate problem gambling, and every provider must find out what works in their own way.

Trust is a two-way street

As a pastime, gambling operates on the edge of traditional decency and has done so for many centuries, with this convention sustained by both society and religion. As the industry matures and becomes regulated, it becomes a legitimate one in the eyes of the law, even if it cannot always shake off the stigma of mistrust.

So how do operators, whose primary income comes from gambling, separate themselves from this underlying stigma? A solution might be to make a public statement about your business model, which confirms its grounding in societal values. One provider using this sort of approach is William Hill with its recently unveiled ‘Nobody harmed by gambling’ commitment.

The operator has a total of nine commitments to help tackle problem gambling in the UK. These are split into three categories: immediate actions, long-term programmes and wider collaboration. Immediate actions include providing customers with better data to help them make conscious choices, while long-term goals include developing targeted KPIs on responsible gambling and an innovation fund to pilot new ideas.

But for Lyndsay Wright, director of strategy and sustainability at William Hill, the most important thing “is to set the ambition, and to set it high”. “Once you do that, you give our colleagues, who ultimately are at the front line for a lot of this, the clear instruction to do the right thing, to come up with ideas and to embrace the ambition.” She adds: “We want to support all customers by developing tools that enable them to stay in control, work to target and support those at risk so they don’t slip into problems, and, finally, ensure there is the support network to help those that do experience problems to get out of it.”

Despite this lofty commitment, some may question the timing of the initiative, especially given Hills’ well publicised £6.2m fine from the GC last year after “systemic senior management failure to protect customers and prevent money laundering”, a link which Wright dismisses: “The process started before the fines, but the general thrust of the regulator in recent years has been to embrace the issue and, to date, the industry had failed to do so.”

Going beyond the hyperbole and Hills’ history, for Wright, making the nobody harmed by gambling commitment “is simply the right thing to do”. “While it is early days and we have a long way to go in terms of delivering on our ambition, it is important that we, as a leading brand, recognise that we must operate within the bounds of public acceptance.”

Separation of powers

For many consumers, the lack of trust in gambling operators comes from a lack of confidence that the operator has their best interests at heart. After all, is it not in an operator’s best interests to keep you playing on their site, regardless of the consequences to you? Well, actually no.

There is no financial value or reputational benefit in having an unnoticed problem gambler on your website. If you are found to be enabling a problem gambler, then you will invariably receive a financial penalty, as several operators have found out to their cost during the last year. In addition, the reputational damage caused by having your brand dragged through the mud by the regulator.

As is often the case in governmental bodies, having an independent entity overseeing your operations can often restore the trust that you have perceptibly lost. One provider taking this approach is LeoVegas, which following a GC fine in May, has chosen to remove the responsible gambling element from its main business, spinning it out into the LeoSafePlay business.

Billed as an effort to create the “best conditions for the next generation responsible gaming system based on machine learning”, but for Rikard Ljungman, director of LeoSafePlay, the objective is, first and foremost, “to protect our customers and, secondly, a platform for growth”. He continues: “Responsible gambling functionality is complicated and time consuming. With LeoSafePlay we can do it once and serve all, without the need to force all brands into one gaming platform.”

In a portfolio which encompasses a number of high-profile industry brands, the need to speak with one voice when it comes is important, and having an agnostic solution which is not perceptibly part of the main business adds an implied layer of acceptability. If the responsible gaming unit does not rely on the main business, its objectivity is never in doubt.

“The single most important aspect is to be as proactive as possible to prevent problem gambling early, or even before it evolves,” Ljungman states. “With many thousands of simultaneous players this has to be done with a combination of predefined limits, automatic interventions based on user behavior and fast, efficient processes and tools for our staff.”

But will other operators look to adopt this sort of agnostic and independent responsible gambling business approach? “It depends on their strategy, size and complexity of operation” Ljungman responds. “Many smaller companies with only one brand/platform will probably buy external tools. Larger companies like LeoVegas with many brands and platforms might look into creating their own.”

Understanding the problem in problem gambling

To assess the nature of problem gambling, many operators have chosen to provide customers with the tools necessary to examine their own gambling habits, trusting that consumers will take the opportunity. One of the first to directly tackle this issue was Mr Green with its Green Gaming tool, which uses a risk-based analysis where responsible gambling is concerned.

So, what does tackling problem gambling mean to an operator? Mr Green CEO Jesper Kärrbrink says: “We believe it is important that we talk openly about high-risk gaming behaviours with our customers. By talking about a problem, we make it visible and we can increase our customers’ understanding of their risk behaviors. We want to give them a chance to understand if things are moving too fast.

“As when it comes to any addiction, the individual must acknowledge his or her problem to be able to deal with it. What we do is provide customers with a deeper insight into their gaming behaviors and give them tools to make them reduce their risk profile.”

The tool analyses the customer’s actual gaming behaviour and combines this with the customer’s own image of their gaming. The analysis is based on risk, intensity, change and volume. Accordingly, they receive individual information about their gaming and a chance to understand if things are moving too fast. Yet for Kärrbrink, Green Gaming is not just about the customer; it is about the business as well. “Green Gaming is a mindset, a culture that encompasses all employees. We strongly believe that Green Gaming must be a part of the Group strategy to be effective and incorporated in all aspects of the business.”

According to latest data provided by the operator, about 14% of its casino players have opted in to the Green Gaming tool. Of these, 28% have set deposit limits and 9.4% have been classified as high-risk players. Despite these interesting figures, Kärrbrink says: “It is too early to say if we have managed to discourage problem gambling, but my guess would be so. When it comes to our conclusions, we can already see that the customers who play the most are also the ones who use the tool the most. This is encouraging since we believe it is an indication of the importance of helping customers in getting a better understanding of their risk behaviours.”

But 14% is still a long way from 100% and until every gambler using MRG’s sites chooses to utilise Green Gaming, it is still just that: a choice. Mindful of this disparity, Mr Green has confirmed that it plans to make the tool mandatory for all Swedish players from January 2019, and is also looking to extend this to its UK players in the future.

Coming full circle to our introductory analogy of a child finding its place in the world, the gambling industry is almost through its teenage years, which have been filled with the angst of regulation and business development, and it is now becoming an established individual with the power to determine its own destiny. For now, it seems that a vital part of that process centres around one thing: responsible gambling.

Whether or not that process is a painful one for the industry is unclear at this point, but is it necessary? Yes. A customer base is the lifeblood which sustains the industry, allowing it to grow, develop and innovate. Without the players, the gambling industry will ultimately fail, much to the detriment of all.