BETTER CHANGE
Safer Gambling Week 2023 N
Better Change founder, Victoria Reed, reflects on what the Safer Gambling Week actually stands for.
ovember saw The Betting and Gaming Council of Great Britain (BGC) stage the latest of its annual Safer Gambling Week campaigns. As well as operators, regulators, 3rd sector support organisations and other bodies
involved with the gambling industry, Better Change marked the week with a series of events to help raise awareness of Safer gambling. Before I go on to speak about the content of the week, I
think it’s important to reflect on what the week actually stands for. To start with let’s look at the name. It is Safer Gambling Week, it is not anti-gambling week or stop gambling week, nor is it an addictions awareness week, it is a week like the name suggests where various arms of the industry come together to promote the act of gambling safer. That is not to say that we should dismiss the fact that addiction is a very real concern and that ourselves as well as the rest of industry are not anything other than 100% committed to reducing gambling harm, it is more to highlight the opportunity this week presents to promote the good work that is been done across the sector to ensure
28 DECEMBER 2023
our customers safety as well as their entertainment. Before 2020 this annual focus came under the guise of
Responsible Gambling Week. Often met with scepticism from various parties evident by the often-toxic nature of the debate on social media, responsible gambling week as it was then known provided a certain amount of ambiguity as to who’s responsibility it was to be responsible. It was felt that whilst the industry engaged with the campaign it was still ultimately upon the individual who was gambling to act: “you must gamble responsibly”. We cannot simply exonerate all accountability from the consumer of course and education is hugely important in raising the level of gambling literacy across our industry to help consumers make better informed decisions, but safer gambling is all of our responsibility and it was a positive move in 2020 that saw the campaign renamed to reflect that (Twitter can still be a bit hostile but I feel this comes from those that are fiercely anti-gambling as opposed to those who have any interest in improving industry standards) . The first Safer Gambling week with its new name took place under the exceptional circumstances that we found
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