BETTER CHANGE Brad West
2023 Predictions T
he past two years have been nothing if not uncertain and the same has been true for our
beloved industry. With the infamous white paper fi nally peeping over the horizon and promising to be with us any moment, what else do we hope
might be on the cards for the year ahead?
1. Collaboration in Safer Gambling It’s time now for action, not more discussion. As an industry, we’re great at talking about safer gambling and stating that it’s at the heart of our strategies but is it really? We’d argue it’s not. The delay to the white paper has been a welcome excuse for
many operators to pause their investment into safer gambling as they wait with bated breath to see what the new obligations are going to be. Some would argue that that’s perfectly understandable while others would suggest that if it really is an area of importance for them, they would voluntarily continue regardless. In reality, it’s not quite that simple and there’s been a historic lack of acknowledgement from regulatory bodies when operators do go above and beyond, which has simultaneously created a culture of ‘box ticking’ when it comes to safer gambling support rather than a true dedication to such causes. At Better Change, we’ve seen fi rst hand the detriment this has had. Vital projects such as our Customer Interaction and
34 JANUARY 2023
Victoria Reed, the founder of Better Change, offers Casino International readers her predictions for 2023, and reminds the industry that now isn’t the time to take your foot off the gas.
treatment services, as well as our gambling awareness programme for the residents of supporting housing, have all been struggling to achieve funding as the operators wait for news. The reality of this is that the vulnerable recipients of these programmes are suffering and Founders such as ours are having to self-fund projects to ensure they continue. Clearly this isn’t sustainable for very long. The fear for 2023 is that if the white paper is released this
month as has been suggested, it will still take many months for it to be digested and its contents implemented. Safer Gambling is therefore likely to be on the back burner until at least the Summer. Andrew Rhodes, the CEO of the United Kingdom Gambling
Commission (UKGC) is certainly saying all the right things by acknowledging that we need to see more collaboration in the industry and that he’s especially keen to see collaboration between the UKGC and Operators which will be a very welcome change, but it remains to be seen if these words actually turn into actions. The latest GambleAware conference held at the end of last
year had a strong theme of collaboration with discussions around the expertise and resource we have in the sector needing to support each other more and so we can only hope this comes to fruition as we travel though 2023.
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