Gambling charities GamCare, Gamban, and GAMSTOP have partnered together to launch a new responsible gambling campaign titled #TalkBanStop.
Under the brand new campaign, the three gambling charities will work to promote their tools supported by the National Gambling Treatment Service, including Gamban’s gambling blocking software, GAMSTOP’s self-exclusion tools, and GamCare’s various support and treatment services too.
According to GamCare, the campaign will be split into three parts, each promoting a service offered by the aforementioned gambling charities. The #Talk segment will promote GamCare’s 24/7 free telephone service, which offers players direct access to trained professionals.
The #Ban segment will promote Gamban’s gambling blocker, which can be downloaded for all devices, and the #Stop segment will promote GAMSTOP’s self-exclusion tool, which will allow gamers to ban themselves from playing on gambling websites.
The launch of the new campaign comes as GamCare has launched a new industry code on the display of safer gambling information. The code aims to provide customers with easy access to straightforward and well-signposted tools and support across multiple platforms.
Developed in consultation with the Betting And Gaming Council (BGC), GamCare service users and other gambling support services too, all BGC members will be required to follow it by August 31st. This means that operators will need to display safer gambling information in navigation menus, in customer account sections, and in spaces allocated for the promotion of casinos.
The news of GamCare, Gamban, and GAMSTOP’s new campaign comes as fellow gambling charity GambleAware has revealed that three of its recently commissioned studies have recommended more safer gambling messages across all stages of customer communication.
GambleAware’s report, titled ‘An Integrated Approach To Safer Gambling’, was carried out by social research and behavioural agency Revealing Reality alongside the UK Gambling Commission, and it looks at how gambling operators Genting Casino, Buzz Bingo, Gamesys’ Jackpotjoy website, 888Casino, and Betfred retail shops and online websites.
Carried out over a nine-month period and funded by a grant from GambleAware, the study found that the industry could make “significant progress” in the development of safer gambling messaging and recommended that operators integrate the messages into everything, including communication with customers and general design.
According to Revealing Reality, gambling operators who adopt the recommended integrated approach to safer gambling messages would take a preventative approach rather than a reactive approach. What’s more, the study found that customers will need to experience consistent motivating support for safer gambling and that operators should take all responsibility for integrating the messages.
In addition to all of the above, Revealing Reality found that most operators already hold the skills and expertise to make the improvements recommended by the study but aren’t currently putting them to use.
Damon De Ionno, the Managing Director at Revealing Reality, told GamblingInsider: “For many operators, safer gambling is often viewed as an add on.
“But our report has shown that to be successful in communicating safer gambling to customers, operators need to build safer gambling messages into every aspect of business and customer interaction. It is time operators look to prevent gambling harms, rather than just react to them.”
Tim Miller, the Executive Director at the UK Gambling Commission, commented: “Safer Gambling is about protecting people from gambling harm, and it is vital we have a clear focus on trying to prevent gambling harms from happening in the first place.
“Safer gambling messaging can play a key part in this preventative approach. This is why it is so important that the work from Revealing Reality and the Behavioural Insights Team has focused upon better understanding what works and what doesn’t when it comes to safer gambling messaging.”
He added: “We would encourage gambling operators to look at this research and consider how it can help shape their approaches around safer gambling messaging.”
It’s not just the UK that has been working on raising gambling standards. The Gibraltar Betting and Gaming Association (GBGA) has formed the Gibraltar Gambling Care Foundation (GGCF), a charity that aims to reduce gambling harm and protect players.
According to FocusGN, the GGCF will be funded by the GBGA but will work independently to clamp down on the number of people suffering from gambling-related harm within the country.
What’s more, the charity will reportedly fund research on the impact of gambling harm and methods of reducing it in partnership with the University of Gibraltar’s Centre of Excellence in Responsible Gambling.
Finally, the GGCF will look into how prevalent gambling-related harm is in Gibraltar and will look into identification tools that operators can potentially use to monitor and measure problem gambling among its users, as well as the creation and management of a database of gambling industry information to aid future research.
Stephen Reyes, chair of the GGCF, said in a statement to FocusGN: “Gibraltar is known globally as a premier jurisdiction in the online gambling area, so it is great that as an industry the operators have come together and set up and formed this charitable foundation to invest in academic research to inform effective initiatives to encourage responsible gambling and prevent gambling harm.”
GBGA Chair Nigel Birrell added: “This is a pivotal step change for all Gibraltar-licensed operators and the jurisdiction as a whole.
“The GBGA, via the GGCF, will be supporting the creation of an industry-leading research programme aimed at exploring solutions to minimise gambling-related harm and the creation of open-source databases for academic studies.”
