Work to Do: IGRG Shows what Really Needs to Be Done to Address Problem Gambling

Gambling industry watchdog organisation Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (ICRG) has published a new round of socially responsible advertising standards.

Limiting Youth Access   

This edition, the third, establishes guidelines for codes limiting access of those under 18 to gambling market material on YouTube, Twitter and other forms of social media.

New Protective Reference

An additional update is to change all references to the GambleAware website to be changed to read “begambleaware.org,” which clearly accelerates access for potentially vulnerable users to a support site without having to run a search.   

Precedent for Changes

A series of noted advertising standards authority rulings preceded the release, including rulings against 888, SkyVegas, Casumo and Ladbrokes.

Affiliates Addressed

To this landscape did IGRG ad for the first time a specific affiliate caveat, referring to “the need for all operators to do their best to ensure that any affiliates that market on their behalf also comply with the requirements of the Code.”

IGRG’s Express Hope

Of the updates, IGRG Chairman John Hagan said that “advertising of gambling has probably never been more in the spotlight than it is at present and we await with interest the eventual conclusions of the ongoing DCMS review.”

About the Code

Originally developed under the umbrella of the Industry Group for Responsible Gaming IGRG, the Industry Code was developed collectively by the representatives of gambling industry including the Association of British Bookmakers, BACTA, the Bingo Association, National Casino Forum and the Remote Gambling Association.

Implementing Protection Practices

As far as the extent of progress in securing safe gaming overall, non-profit GambleAware recently published industry research calling for all gaming employees industry-wide to receive training in safe gambling promotion in their day-to-day jobs to the extent that they could achieve confidence in communicating effectively with customers, with far too few able to at this juncture.    

Invisible Protections?

Related consumer data revealed customer reports of perceiving safety messages were far lower than promotional material, with the majority of consumers unaware that responsible gambling messages were already in place.

Operators Not Aligned    

This information proves a strong but undesirable correspondence to survey findings that operators generally found new responsible gambling material to be "too costly" or "risky."

The Current Reality

GambleAware summarized the conclusions of the study for the industry as a "loud wake-up call," calling for far more to be done for a total of 430,000 gamblers in the UK and a further two million found to be “at risk.”

Road of Best Intentions

While the best intentions are a stated goal, this report defines the real gap between the ethical imperative and actual operational practice in gaming today, as the necessary statistical baseline for improvement.