Duncan Garvie: “The enthusiasm for BetBlocker has been exponential”

BetBlocker has been on a remarkable growth trajectory, as discussed in a recent interview with CEO Duncan Garvie. The software teamed up with Casino Guru to bolster the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative, helping consumers navigate gambling-related harm more effectively. With Casino Guru now a top referral source, BetBlocker has significantly raised its profile.

The company also received prestigious awards from the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) and continues expanding its reach by offering services in multiple languages. Looking ahead, BetBlocker is poised to introduce innovative features to further enhance its industry standing and its work "on the ground" to aid consumers stay on a safe gameplay trajectory. All of this and more in the coming year.

Q: Duncan, it’s good to catch up again. BetBlocker and Casino Guru recently announced a new partnership that is intended to spearhead a Global Self-Exclusion Initiative. How has this been going? What have been the initial stages of the partnership so far?

It’s great to have the opportunity to chat to your team again!

The partnership with Casino Guru’s Global Self-Exclusion Initiative was an obvious natural synergy. One a project that looks to provide users a way to exclude themselves from gambling and the other a project to great a single scheme that would allow players to exclude with all gambling operators. There is clear alignment in the objectives of these undertakings and a strong shared benefit for vulnerable players. For me the only surprising part of this cooperation is that it took us this long to realise the benefits of cooperating.

We’ve started out with some basic sign-posting of the BetBlocker service within the Global Self-Exclusion scheme documentation. A huge number of players engage with Casino Guru’s educational tool and this low hanging fruit was an obvious place to start.

As to how it’s going, fantastically! Some of the biggest names in gambling sign-post our service in their responsible gambling material, but already Casino Guru has rocketed into the top 10 sources of referral traffic for BetBlocker. That’s very rapid benefit for vulnerable players and a huge win for our joint efforts.

Q: What do you think an ideal outcome of this partnership would be and do you think there are constraints and limitations on how far-reaching such an initiative can be?

BetBlocker is not coming into this relationship with an specific outcome in mind. The initial goal is certainly to raise awareness of the different support services that are available to help people impacted by gambling harms. But Casino Guru are an innovative team of people and preconceptions will only limit what we can achieve.

As with our partnership with every other voice in the gambling sector, the only limitations we would put on it would be ensuring the protecting the people we support. As long as we ensure that remains the priority there are no other restrictions on how or what we can work on together.

Q: You recently saw BetBlocker win accolades at the NCPG Awards 2024 – what has led to this milestone?

8 years, and thousands of hours of hard work. But I need to be clear that whilst I may be the person who founded BetBlocker, we are a team and every member of the team gives their all to deliver the support we do.

Receiving the Jim Wuelfing Award Annual for Prevention from the National Council on Problem Gambling is, behind only the lives that BetBlocker has impacted, the single proudest achievement of my life. To have the organisation recognized for the contribution it has made to the field by one of the leading bodies in the sector is validating in a way that I struggle to articulate. Not to mention that the award has substantially raised the profile of the charity with the United States and will ensure that we can support far more US citizens in the years to come.

We are extremely grateful to even have been considered for such prestigious recognition. It’s now on us to live up to that honor and to redouble our efforts to reach the people that need our help.

Q: BetBlocker continues to introduce more languages, with you recently adding several major languages. Have you already registered success in leveraging native languages to help consumers better understand the benefits of self-exclusion?

The sad reality about blocking software is that many of the people who come to us seeking support do so at a point of crisis. They’ve lost too much money, they are panicking. They don’t know how they’re going to afford their debts. They’re confronting having to explain their losses, or hide them, from people they care deeply for. Their stomach is a rock. Their blood is thundering in their ears’. They cannot think clearly.

As simple as we work to make BetBlocker, it is always going to require changing settings and the instructions on how to do that need to be carefully laid out. When someone is at this point of crisis and they don’t speak the language that the instructions are given in, accessing support becomes far more challenging.

Every time we translate to a new language, we see traffic in that language visiting the BetBlocker website increase by between 4 and 10 times. Those figures can’t be argued with. When we translate the app, we reach people that we couldn’t help before. So we’re going to keep translating the service into as many languages as we can and hope to over double the number of languages BetBlocker is available in before the end of the year.

Q: Your team was also at the iGB LIVE conference in Amsterdam last month. Given your stint in the industry, do you feel BetBlocker is more sought after among operators and stakeholders? Have you noticed something different in the way BetBlocker’s team and the rest of the industry engage at such major events?

iGB L!VE was an amazing event this year. What I’ve learned over my years of attending conferences is that having a stand at an industry event like this makes a huge difference to the profile of our organization. Clarion Gaming has been an amazing supporter of BetBlocker in the last couple of years and without a shadow of a doubt a lot of the momentum that we’ve gained over the last 12 months has come as a result of Clarion supporting our charity.

When you can exhibit, and you can stand in front of your organisation’s booth with a smile on your face, ready to welcome people, amazing conversations are plentiful. You end up talking to stakeholders that you would never have reached out to remotely, and who you’d never have spoken to without a booth. And it opens up innovation and creative thinking. It supports cooperation and collaboration. It facilitates dialogue. And when we talk to each other, amazing things happen.

So, without question, I feel that being given the opportunity to participate in events like iGB L!VE has fundamentally changed the way that operators and other stakeholders in the sector have engaged with BetBlocker. The growth in support and enthusiasm for our project has been exponential.

And that’s why I’m really looking forward to both exhibiting and speaking at SBC Lisbon next month.

Q: What would you want to see BetBlocker achieve over the coming months?
We have many upgrades and improvements that we’re working on as an answer this question, but I don’t want to say too much about them as we work hard to surprise the sector with our innovation. Having new news to share regularly ensures that the profile of BetBlocker remains high, that donors support us and operators want to sign-post our support.

What I can say is that we’ve already significantly improve the protections that the app offers this year, that we’re now averaging 50 additional devices connected to our servers every day, that we’re preparing to launch in a host of new languages and that we have several new features we’re really excited about that we hope to launch over the new 12 months. So watch this space.

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