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Promoting Safer Gambling Is ‘Mission Critcial’ For The Industry
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OPERATORS are doing more to promote safer gambling than at any time in the last two decades, John Hagan, chairman of the Industry Group For Responsible Gambling, on Thursday told the inaugural EGR UK Summit.
Speaking on the opening day of Responsible Gambling Week, Mr Hagan hailed the commitment of gambling companies to create a safer environment for their customers, but said the campaign had reached a ‘critical stage’ and the challenge was to reach occasional gamblers who did not think responsible gambling messages applied to them. He highlighted YouGov research, commissioned by the IGRG, which showed many adults who played the lottery, bought scratch cards or enjoyed betting on sport did not think they were gambling.
The EGR UK Summit, held at Twickenham Stadium in association with Responsible Gambling Week, brought together operators, affiliates, suppliers and regulators to discuss safer gambling strategies across the industry.
Introducing an industry panel to review responsible gambling initiatives over the last 12 months, Mr Hagan said: “Responsible gambling is a shared responsibility and it’s incumbent on operators to provide a safer environment for its customers without fear of cutting across its commercial goals. A fairer and safety gambling environment is critical to the future of the industry”.
But having worked in the industry for the last two decades as a lawyer, he said he had witnessed a transformation in operators’ approach to responsible gambling in recent years. Despite the cynicism of the industry’s critics, a raft of player protection initiatives announced in the last 12 months showed operators were serious about enhancing player protection.
Lyndsay Wright, director of sustainability at William Hill, said there was increasing pressure from investors to justify their actions and they were asking: “How do we know you are doing the right thing?” but she rejected the idea of voluntary online stake limits as a catch-all solution. She said William Hill had launched a new advertising and social media campaign focused on portraying gambling “in the way we know it should be” as a community-based, recreational activity and Responsible Gambling Week had given the company a focus for its safer gambling campaign.
Ben Wright, head of safer gambling at Sky Betting and Gambling, told the conference that winning customers’ trust was paramount and safer gambling must become integral to every company’s culture. He said Sky Betting’s profit and loss tool was one of the most successful it had launched to customers, part of the process of “normalizing” safer gambling.
Wes Himes, interim chief executive of The Betting and Gaming Council, pointed to the success of the pre-watershed whistle-to-whistle advertising ban as a sign that the industry was taking safer gambling seriously. Preliminary figures showed there was less than an hour of gambling-related advertising around live TV sport in September 2019, compared to 6.6 hours in September 2018. Meanwhile, amongst 4-17-year-olds there had been a 97% drop in the amount of exposure to gambling advertising.
Tim Miller, executive director of The Gambling Commission, said in his conference keynote address:
“Every year, Responsible Gambling Week develops further and gets better. It has moved from being an initiative led by one sector to something that is much more collaborative, much more cross-industry. That is not easy to do. John Hagan and his colleagues have done an amazing job to bring so many operators and sectors together”.
He said the campaign had to consider where to go next and operators should ask themselves two questions: Are the right people in our business engaged in Responsible Gambling Week, not just those with a social responsibility remit? How can we ensure the campaign reaches a wider audience?
But he echoed Mr Hagan’s view that there had been a “sea-change in operators’ approach to responsible gambling, hailing the commitment by large operators to support education, research and treatment as “an important step forward”. He said the Gambling Commission’s primary areas of focus in the coming months would be on developing common standards around game and app design; developing a code of conduct around inducements to gamble; and embracing technology to promote social responsibility.
Responsible Gambling Week (November 7th-13th) is the biggest ever campaign in the UK and Ireland to promote safer gambling. The objective is to get people talking about how to gamble responsibly, without putting themselves and others at risk, and to provide year-round advice and help at www.responsiblegamblinguk.org. More than 120,000 staff at thousands of gambling venues and online sites are taking part in the campaign, which is supported by leading football clubs, racecourses, pubs and charities and voluntary organizations.
Source: Latest News on European Gaming Media Network
This is a Syndicated News piece. Photo credits or photo sources can be found on the source article: Promoting Safer Gambling Is ‘Mission Critcial’ For The Industry
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Games distribution platform Ultra has announced that Ubisoft has become the first major gaming company to bolster its UOS blockchain, as a corporate block producer, during a trial period on the testnet.
Block producers will provide the infrastructure to validate transactions happening on Ultra’s blockchain. These transactions will include, for instance, in-game assets creation, ownership transfers between players or payments.
Ultra’s blockchain mainnet launch date is to be announced. Ubisoft will start contributing to the testnet before the end of the year and, if successful, will be part of the launch team for the Mainnet.
“Since Ubisoft is already a leader in the games industry and shows commitment to probe blockchain as a viable technology for games, we are very excited to be announcing our first cooperation of this kind with them. Ubisoft’s rich portfolio of world-renowned brands, including Assassin’s Creed, Just Dance and Far Cry, is a testament to their dedication to creating quality content for all, and their years long dedication to exploring blockchain technology ensures they have the knowledge and skills to be excellent block producers,” Nicolas Gilot, Founder and Co-CEO of Ultra said.
“Our team at the Strategic Innovation Lab strongly believes that all Blockchain use cases that bring value to players are important to support, and Ultra offers a solution that does just that. During this first trial period of collaboration, we hope to help them in bringing it to a larger scale and experiment with the possibilities this opens up for the industry,” Nicolas Pouard, Ubisoft’s Blockchain Initiative Director said.
“We’re on a mission to shake up the gaming industry by placing power back into the hands of developers and players. We are paving the way for a first-class game publishing platform, and we couldn’t do it without the support of companies such as Ubisoft,” Nicolas Gilot said.
Source: Latest News on European Gaming Media Network
This is a Syndicated News piece. Photo credits or photo sources can be found on the source article: Ubisoft to Support Ultra’s UOS Blockchain Testnet
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The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court has ruled that the video game machines manufactured and distributed by the company POM under the name “Pennsylvania Skill” are considered “slot machines” under Pennsylvania law.
“With this decision, we urge the Pennsylvania State Police, the Office of Attorney General, police departments and District Attorneys across the state to enforce Pennsylvania law to halt the proliferation of thousands of illegal Pennsylvania Skill slot machines now in convenience stores, bars, restaurants and other establishments in communities across the state,” Thomas C. Bonner, Group VP / Legal & Chief Counsel for Parx Casino said.
“We know that illegal slot machines and full-blown illegal casinos are popping up all over Pennsylvania. We know that minors are gambling, and we know that the state Lottery is losing tens of millions of dollars that should be going to our seniors because of these illegal machines. It’s time to confiscate these machines and put these illegal casinos out of business,” Bonner added.
The Commonwealth Court’s clarification that the “Pennsylvania Skill” games are “slot machines” under Pennsylvania law provides concrete and clear legal justification for law enforcement at the state and local levels to confiscate such machines and prosecute those responsible for manufacturing, distributing, leasing, or owning these machines.
Source: Latest News on European Gaming Media Network
This is a Syndicated News piece. Photo credits or photo sources can be found on the source article: PA Commonwealth Court Rules Pennsylvania Skill Video Game Machines are Slot Machines
Reading Time: < 1 minute
The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has cleared Merkur Cashino of targeting children with its advertising, after a £5 free-play offer on the back of a bus ticket prompted a complaint against the operator.
The complaint was against a promotion that appeared on the back of a child’s bus ticket in Birmingham and read “£5 Free Plays on a machine of your choice with this ticket.”
Rule 16.3.13 of the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) states that gambling marketing must not be directed at those aged under 18, either through content or by where it appears. Gambling advertising is deemed to be directed towards children if under 18s make up more than 25% of their audience.
Merkur responded to the complaint by arguing that TicketMedia, the advertising agency behind the promotion, had confirmed to them that on the bus routes on which they advertised across the UK, 23.1% of ticket-holding passengers were between 5 and 15 years of age. In addition, Merkur said that the content and design of the ad had no specific appeal to under 18s, and an “over 18” symbol was included.
“We considered that in areas where there might be a concentration of people under 18 (for example on a bus route which served schools) the proportion of under 18s in the ad’s audience might be higher than 25%. However, on the particular bus route identified by the complainant, the highest percentage of child-fare paper tickets issued was 15% during term time,” the ASA said.
Source: Latest News on European Gaming Media Network
This is a Syndicated News piece. Photo credits or photo sources can be found on the source article: UK ASA Clears Merkur Over Bus Ticket Promotion
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