Robert Mabbett: Positive play: Interacting with customers over intervening

Before I begin, this is not an attack on the thousands of people who work in customer-facing roles in the gambling industry in fact, it is quite the opposite. With the tools provided and the weight of expectancy upon them, they have done an outstanding job. In the past few years certainly, since the onset of the pandemic, there has been an abundance of guidance from regulators around the world, trade bodies and gambling harm support organisations telling us to interact more with our customers and for the most part this seemed to work well. There was no major news event around the increase of gambling harm during the pandemic contrary to what was predicted and in the UK in recent years there has been a decline in the prevalence of gambling harm based on the UK Gambling Commissions statistics.

These are positive headlines and should be welcomed by all quarters as nobody wants to see gambling harm increase. In well over a decade working in the gambling industry I have seen huge changes in attitude towards player protection. Thanks to organisations set up to raise awareness of gambling harm and to those with lived experience of harm who have courageously stepped forward to share their stories to help educate the gambling industry we have a much better understanding of the symptoms of gambling harm and as a result, we have developed a range of tools to help us act when we identify someone who is struggling.

But we are missing something, something big!

In the two years post-2020 and the impact of Covid-19 restrictions, many gambling treatment and support services had reported an increase in numbers and more importantly an increase in severity in those who presented for support. I myself was working for one such organisation, gambling addiction residential treatment provider Gordon Moody.

We saw an increase in diagnosed mental health issues in our clients applying for support, this would be two out of every three people that applied. Slightly larger than that number were people who had contemplated suicide as a result of their gambling. In addition to this one in three would find themselves involved with the criminal justice system, one in four would use illicit substances in addition to their gambling and one in five would rank as moderate to high risk in terms of their alcohol use. So how can this be when national statistics show a drop in gambling harm numbers? There are a number of reasons.

Firstly time. Gambling addiction does not happen overnight, it can take years, 12 years in fact in the case of Gordon Moody as this is the average time it takes people to reach treatment having first realised they have an issue with gambling. I am hopeful that improvements in how we identify harm and act may well improve this number in the future getting people the support they need.

Secondly society. Covid-19 took its toll on the population, not just physically but mentally too and to make matters worse we have had war in Europe, a subsequent energy crisis and a cost-of-living crisis to contend with. These things take their toll, especially on those more vulnerable and with trauma being one of the main catalysts of addiction it is something we need to be mindful of.

This brings me to my third point - prevention. It is my opinion that we are seeing severe cases coming through because they need professional support. Their situation has become so critical that the intervention from a treatment provider is the only option, whereas for many who have experienced low to moderate harms we have been very good at putting a blocker in place to limit the gambling harm.

This is preventative work of course because it is preventing or at least delaying further gambling harm but if you look at many of the recently implemented or recommended regulatory changes such as limiting stakes, time and access, affordability checking/financial risk assessments, self-exclusion schemes and blocking software they are all restrictive measures designed to put a hard stop to somebody’s gambling instead of preventing harm. All are necessary of course when someone’s gambling has become harmful to themselves and potentially those around them but to implement these operators have had to enforce blanket restrictions on some of their products which affect the experience of the majority of customers who gamble safely.

Instead of the interactions which were encouraged, we are often intervening, imposing measures on customers sometimes just in case they might be harmed but without any real evidence or rationale that this might take place. A continuation down this path will only ever see an increase in these measures imposed which will not only not prevent but contain gambling harm but will also diminish the customer experience.

Keeping players safe is all part of providing a great customer experience and I would love to see the industry get on the front foot and genuinely prevent gambling harm by promoting positive play.

Interact with your customers, positively re-enforce good behaviours, know your products and educate your customers on them, prize customer retention as much as acquisition and build trust. I am extremely proud to work in the gambling industry as are many others and the capabilities are well within us to deliver a great and safe experience for our customers.

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