National Responsible Gambling Strategy – Ups, Downs and Future Plans

According to The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board (RGSB), the special regulatory body achieved a plethora of previously set key milestones - however, it did fail to make significant progress in the, perhaps, most sensitive field - coping with gambling-related issues in Great Britain.

Still An Average Progress

The Strategy itself was published 3 years ago, in April 2016, with the idea to accentuate as many factors as possible which lead to problems as well as those that might be of help to reduce the said issues. Thanks to their efforts…

…gambling was actually recognized as a public health issue world-wide for the first time ever.

But, as far as they are concerned, progress could have been a bit better. There were many ideas with huge potential that are still waiting to be tested. As they pointed out in the press release, there ought to be a more proactive approach.

“The overall verdict on the strategy must, however, be that we have moved neither far enough, nor fast enough. We are still some way from a coherent national approach. We do not yet know about what works in harm prevention.”

Problems Which Require Clinical Treatment

One of the main highlights of their work is the conclusion that promoting responsible gambling is not the only crucial approach for encouraging players to play at the proper pace…

…there are, of course, other factors that have a significant impact on the way people perceive gambling and their place in it.

There will be more attention steered at the environment itself, as well as product design. They noted that the attitude is changing slowly, with more and more operators taking steps to have a less commercially enticing approach. This definitely comes as one of RGSB's major successes, as many operators and marketers were…

…initially refusing to acknowledge the relationship between their games and the potential for harm, which is already a hot topic in Sweden.

The Public Health England announced the plan to carry out a review of gambling-related harms. In addition to this, as a part of the 10-year plan, National Health Service (NHS) and GambleAware will establish a regional clinic in Leeds to treat the issues as any other illness.

More Milestones To Reach

As the culture of gambling mental health evaluation slowly starts to dawn, the RGSB points out that the time frame set for some greater achievements and ground-breaking changes was “probably over-optimistic.” They also added that detailed implementation of plans is another key priority in days to come.

“But there have also been some notable successes, especially the beginning of a noticeable change in mindset about the need for action on gambling-related harms and the best ways of approaching it. We believe therefore that a valuable opportunity has now opened up for the new strategy to make a significant step up in delivering the objective of reducing gambling harms.”

Taking the 2016-2019 strategy as a solid base for further opportunities, future strategies should be even more aggressive and specific. That’s why the Gambling Commission will support RGSB and take responsibility for further strategy developments and implementations.

Source:

“UK’s RGSB issues mixed report on 2016-19 RG Strategy”, igamingbusiness.com, April 1, 2019.