The self-exclusion paradox

What an interesting past 12 months it has been for remote gambling, not just here in the UK but across the globe. Regulators have introduced and are introducing new licensing requirements that will help move the industry into a much more safe and stable state from a player’s perspective. Strengthening the need for safer gambling environments and more comprehensive solutions for players that have taken things too far is an excellent strategy for promoting sustainability across the industry. Legislation and licensing conditions are a huge part of creating that safer ecosystem for the player to reside while gambling but translating those conditions into actionable steps to enhance daily operating procedures on the operator’s part is a bit more complex.

In a world where regulators mostly leave the operators to figure out exactly how to implement supporting systems that underpin newly legislated compliance issues and crack the whip with an accompanying fine when they discover the operator is getting it wrong, we see an opportunity to connect the dots and help everyone get it right.

Over the last year, we’ve seen the emergence of a lofty conversation around a layered self-exclusion approach designed to protect the player from remote gambling addiction that encompasses combined technology solutions to prevent the problem gambler from accessing any gambling function in the digital space. The tools that help create this barrier for the player are all in their infancy and yet have proven to be an effective combination for players that need to stop gambling. This is all great news, but as technology continues to expand and adapt so do the different ways which people can gamble, meaning remote self-exclusion needs to continuously adapt to an ever-changing landscape for years to come.

Taking care

Technology as a solution to a gambling problem has only just been validated as a tangible approach to aid a player in recovery. As the industry is trying to wrap their heads around this, they all have to be shoring up their offering with the right tools to equip self-excluding players that promote a successful journey away from their problem and into a care path. In a lot of operator cases, this is paradoxical to business practice. An industry designed to retain players is now having to consider the appropriate steps of permanently cashing that person out, off of their platform, and placing them on a road that leads them away from ever returning.

That said, there are several operators out there that are adopting these practices early and that is a great sign, however, the operators treating it like window dressing far outnumber the ones that are willing and aggressively re-engineering their processes to support a more secure self-exclusion model for the player. Operators that we have talked to seem far more interested in utilising technology that adapts the players experience based off of AI algorithms and betting patterns to try to slow down the person or attempt to prevent the person from ever landing in the self-exclusion zone in the first place.

But for such an approach to be effective it requires a level of co-operation among operators that does not currently exist. Mostly forgetting or ignoring that people suffering from addiction need a high level of intervention accompanied by a shut off valve. And naively overlooking the fact that the shut off valve can be a great sustainability factor, not only for the player but for the operator itself. At a time when players are more concerned than ever with social responsibility, offering that shut off valve can be a very attractive factor even for players that never fall into the at-risk category.

Author: Daniel Umfleet, chief operating officer, Gamban

Bio: Daniel Umfleet heads up operations at gamban. His role is to anticipate the industry’s needs and prepare Gamban for the next step, making sure every activity clicks into place. Before joining gamban, Umfleet worked for strategic consultancy firm Renoir, where he led multinational projects, many of which were in the health sector.