Embrace the advantages of a responsible gambling approach

Responsible gambling (RG) is a hot topic everywhere we look. It has become a strong message in marketing and gambling ads, signalling to existing and future customers that they are being cared for. Additionally, operators have embraced responsible gambling at a more strategic level, communicating responsible gambling and implementing RG initiatives and solutions.

Last but not least, regulators keep a close eye on the gambling industry and continuously raise the bar to keep gamblers safe by tightening legislation.

With responsible gambling having come to stay, we might just as well find the opportunities that come with it and embrace the many advantages of a responsible gambling approach.

The goose and the golden egg

To illustrate this, let’s take a quick look at the story about the goose and the golden egg. A farmer had a goose that laid a golden egg every day. By selling the golden eggs, he became rich, but he wanted more than one golden egg a day and cut open the goose to get all the eggs at once – only to find out that there were no eggs inside and he no longer had his golden goose.

Responsible gambling as a business case

If we use the analogy in the gambling industry, gamblers gamble regularly to be entertained while providing operators, the farmer, with golden eggs. In contrast, problem gamblers typically peak with very high losses, before they quit gambling all together, thus no more golden eggs. That said, we have to keep in mind that there are real people behind the golden eggs that can be vulnerable. By taking care of gamblers with a responsible approach, they will keep their golden eggs coming, i.e. they will keep on gambling, having fun and being entertained while operators make money. In a wider sense, this leads to the following advantages of responsible gambling.

• Entertainment and safety go hand in hand
• Sustainable, long-term customer relationships as a strategic advantage
• RG approach sends a strong branding signal to customers as well as regulators
• Lower churn rates as finding new customers is a costly affair
• Avoiding fines or withdrawn licenses
• Fewer bad stories in the media

How do we go about a responsible gambling approach?

Mindway AI leverages a very high accuracy in detecting at-risk and problem gamblers through GameScanner, facilitating a sound responsible gambling strategy. In a sample test performed by GLI?, at least 99% of gamblers manually assessed as potential problem gamblers were classified as either at-risk or potential problem gamblers. The high performance of the award-winning GameScanner is made possible through the inside-out approach that aims at understanding at multiple levels what goes on in the process of developing problem gambling by combining:

• neuroscientific research, looking at brain mechanisms via brain scans
• psychological assessments, understanding gambling behaviour cognitively and
• artificial intelligence, integrating the above to analyse tremendous amounts of data and detecting the complex interrelation in a vast number of gambling and problem gambling characteristics.

What else can operators do?

Operators can provide their customers with the innovative and award-winning Gamalyze self-test that creates self-awareness about own gambling behaviour and decision making in gambling. Simply by playing a card game, the decision making behaviour is analysed, revealing in a report the risk level and key decision making characteristics of a gambler. Additionally, the report provides the gambler with individualized advice to foster healthy gambling. Gamalyze has won this year’s Compliance Innovation Award 2020 by Global Regulatory Awards.

The moral of the story

The moral of the story is that responsible gambling can be a strong business case. With modern technology, protecting customers from gambling related harm is not only a viable solution, but also a crucial step towards a strong responsible gambling strategy.