How Technology Can Play A Pivotal Role In Responsible Gambling

by Staff

Responsible gambling is everyone’s responsibility. For gambling to continue to operate successfully and without societal detriments, there need to be various rules, measures, and laws in place to ensure that at-risk people and their loved ones do not experience avoidable harm from gambling. But how can we do this? While in the past, analog techniques have been the way to stop problem gambling, like putting yourself on a self-exclusion list at your local casino, now, new technologies can help to further enhance responsible gambling. As gambling itself is now fully mobile, responsible gambling techniques must be fully mobile too.

At-risk gamblers

It’s not enough that operators’ tested no deposit bonus codes have been verified by affiliates like NoDepositFan and other third party sites. The reality that online gambling has become so easily accessible creates a potential socio-economic problem, particularly for those individuals who don’t have the means to gamble often, but still do.

In the world of online gambling, people have games readily available at their fingertips. Very low bet sizes can be appealing to people who don’t have much money to gamble. However, like any addiction, this has the propensity to spiral out of control. Even though someone may start playing with just a few dollars over the weekend, thanks to the availability of online casinos and betting apps, this can quickly add up if a player returns to the site time and again.

People from lower socioeconomic backgrounds at most at risk here, as they don’t have the money to spend. If you’re already on a high wage, a few dollars here and there is just a drop in the bucket, but for others who don’t have the means it can be the difference between feeding your children a good meal or getting by on pot noodles.

Responsible gambling techniques

Responsible gambling techniques cover a range of different processes, services, and controls. These include:

  • Counseling services offered free by the government
  • Self-exclusion programs offered by casinos
  • Bet limits, loss limits, and deposit limits
  • 24/7 hotlines for problem gambling
  • Stringent KYC processes for online gambling operators
  • Responsible gambling messages in advertising
  • Restrictions on advertising to dissuade problem gambling
  • Working groups across stakeholders to discuss legislative changes
  • Responsible gambling advertising campaigns by the government and certain community groups
  • And more

Of course, as much as responsible gambling is promoted, it all comes down to the individual and their loved ones wanting to listen to messaging, take up offered services, and commit to gambling responsibly. Like any addiction, a person needs to be able to identify that they need help, and then be committed to changing, along with accessing the useful help around them. It’s a fairly involved process and usually very difficult.

For people around a gambling addict, it can be even more difficult if the person is not committed to change. This is particularly dangerous in situations where the gambler is the breadwinner of a family and is hiding their addiction. Some families may even find their house pulled out from under them if refinancing has gone on without their knowledge.

Technology to the rescue?

Technology has come along so far that we now have the answers to pretty much everything now at our fingertips. In responsible gambling, technology can play a huge part, too.

For instance, in self-exclusion online, there is a gap, as each casino operates its own program and gamblers can simply bounce around to a new one if they wish. Instead, there could be a DAO of gambling operators who have self-exclusion policies shared, all going through a particular gateway. They could also share a customer’s loss limits, deposit limits, and bet limits so that these traveled across sites for users.

Gambling operators also have the opportunity to deploy advanced analytics, which can help identify problem gamblers or people who may be at risk. This may be in terms of the length of gambling sessions, logins, number of deposits per week if they are depositing more than once per day, etc.

But leaving these technological advances up to gambling operators will not work. There is zero incentive for operators to deploy these technologies if they aren’t fineable under the law. Gambling companies are there to make money, they just operate within the laws as that is what they have to do.

Instead, governments need to take a closer look at how they can compel companies to deploy technologies in building responsible gambling controls into their products and services. By getting together with problem players, technology specialists, gambling industry heads, and other stakeholders, they can start to hammer out solutions to the problem. Building on these new controls will take time, and it needs to be a constant process – since tech changes so quickly.

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The New Jersey Digest is a new jersey magazine that has chronicled daily life in the Garden State for over 10 years.

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