PROBLEM GAMBLING / COLUMNIST
EXPERT OPINION
PROBLEM
SOLVING
MARK DAVIES
Mark Davies is managing
director of public
relations and reputation
management firm
Camberton and was
part of the foundermanagement team of
Betfair. Prior to setting
up Betfair, Mark was a
journalist with the BBC.
He also spent five years
in the City with JP Morgan.
W W W. E G R M A G A Z I N E . C O M
Mark Davies on the
implications of the RGT’s
problem gambling research
for online operators
F
ollowing years of the
same old discussions, it is
possible that December
has at last seen a paradigm shift
in the problem gambling debate.
Just as this edition of eGaming
Review was going to press, the
Responsible Gambling Trust
(RGT) published research that
analysed more than seven billion
interactions between customers
and products. Commissioned
from the boffins at Featurespace
who specialise in behavioural
analytics, its ground-breaking
conclusion was that stake sizes
are not a relevant indicator for
potential issues, and therefore
limiting them is not the silverbullet solution that some often
suggest. The implications of that
could be profound.
Given that the research was
based on machines found in
shops – FOBTs – you might
immediately ask what relevance
it has to the online gambling
sector. Indeed, you could argue
that if it has any at all, it is bad
news for internet-only operators
because the pressure on the
Government to introduce a cap
on stakes is likely to ease. On
the face of it, any restrictions
on FOBTs should be a boon to
internet gaming, which is wellplaced to suck up any latent
demand; so anything that makes
restrictions less likely can hardly
be a good thing.
But the oft-repeated truism
about FOBTs is that there
is limited point in making
restrictive rules around what
can be done on machines in
shops when smartphones allow
everyone to carry a host of
unrestricted games around in
their pocket; and this is why the
research should have everyone
in the online industry sitting up
and taking note. The reality of
FOBTs is that while any stake
limit will probably result in a
short-term boost for egaming,
the medium- to long-term
prospects are inevitably that
restrictive legislation will be
carried across. If limiting stakes
is seen as a way of protecting
the vulnerable in shops, then
it will not be long before it is
introduced as a protection in
cyberspace – a restriction which
is no longer difficult to enforce
under the new UK licensing
requirements. In other words,
the RGT research has significant
implications for just about
anyone reading this magazine.
Finding the correct response
As with all reports, it is what
gaming companies do next that
will define the landscape. The
report’s conclusion that limiting
stake sizes across the board
is ineffective will doubtless be
welcomed across the industry,
which will also play down the
apparently alarming revelation
that 23% of regular gamblers
are deemed to have issues with
playing. The defence there is
simple enough – the number is
so much larger than previous
ones because it is a percentage
of regular players rather than of
the overall population.
But while the response from
operators is likely to draw
on both these facts in the
coming weeks, the real prize
for them lies in the fact that
Featurespace’s research does
more than simply improve the
diagnosis of the problem. Far
from just looking at past data,
it also offers a way forward by
predicting future behaviour,
based on the interactions it
has already observed. That
kind of methodology means
the machine it has built will
get better and better the more
information that is fed into
it. It will intelligently design
solutions to prevent people from
approaching, let alone falling
into, the problem gambling hole.
This is the really good news
for people on both sides of
the problem gambling debate.
Both sledgehammer solutions
– blanket legislation which
impacts everyone in order to
protect the minority who need
it – and unrealistic ones (such as
collaboration inter-operator and
between them and the banks)
have for a long time dominated
the political debate.
In response, the industry
has really only been able to
point at the potential wider
collateral impact of introducing
such broad solutions, without
having a better alternative
to offer. But now, it can
implement something that can
make a real difference to the
vulnerable without impacting
other customers. It should
embrace and invest in the new
technology, and apply it across
the whole spectrum of its online
gaming product, grasping what
is perhaps the first opportunity
in a decade to get significantly
ahead of the game.
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