BGC touts rise of responsible gambling tools during Safer Gambling Week

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has hailed the results from last year’s Safer Gambling Week, and noted that a newly published analysis of the campaign indicated an increased use in responsible gambling tools during the seven-day period allocated to raising awareness for safer gambling.

This comes while Safer Gambling Week 2024 is gearing up to roll out during the week of November 18-24, with the goal firmly set on improving on previous milestones.

Responsible gambling tools, deposit limits, and player safety

According to the BGC, basing its official press statement on hard numbers, Safer Gambling Week, or SG Week as it’s known more snappily, was able to galvanize players into seriously considering the use of responsible gambling tools.

An estimated 54% of players who set deposit limits set them for the very first time, an achievement attributed to SG Week, the BGC argues. The overall number of people who actually opted for deposit limits was an 18% gain on players in 2022, too.

Maximum stake limits were another popular measure that was used a lot during SG Week 2023, the BGC reminded, with a 300% increase in this.

All of this, the advocacy group points out has to do with the growing understanding and awareness that players have garnered about the pitfalls of gambling and the need to better regulate their own habits and relationship with the activity.

The BGC pointed out that a total of 83,242 unique account holders have opted for a deposit limit, which is indicative of the growing awareness among players about the good that comes from responsible gambling limits and is short of actually self-excluding oneself or quitting gambling altogether.

On social media channels, across X, Facebook, and Instagram, SG Week messaging garnered more than 50m impressions, indicative to the increase in reach. The campaign said that this was a 70% gain on the year prior’s results, when impressions generated across the same social media channels stood at 30m.

Commenting on these findings, BGC CEO and Acting Chair Michael Dugher was adamant about the significance of the results.

"These new figures show Safer Gambling Week continues to be a powerful advert for increasing the use of safer gambling tools in the regulated industry. Millions of customers now use safer gambling tools including deposit limits and timeouts," he pointed out.

Problem gambling is still a serious concern amongst British punters

Yet, problem gambling has been the source of much debate and discomfort among players. An estimated 430,000 people in Great Britain struggle with controlling their gambling, and the government is piloting an affordability check in August to help tackle the issue, with more tests to follow in the months through February 2025.

In the meantime, the need for responsible gambling and RG tools has increased exponentially, as the UK Gambling Commission previously noted that it is adopting a new methodology that would allow it to better identify the actual number of problem gamblers in the country.

According to the regulator, cited by The Guardian, the real number of problem gamblers could be as high as 1.3m. Yet, the regulator cautions that this does not point to a dramatic increase per se, but rather a change in the methodology that now produces numbers that are not comparable to previous estimates.

In the meantime, Safer Gambling Week is heading towards its eighth edition this year, having proved a largely welcomed initiative which now has the data to back up its role in helping tackle problem gambling.

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