To regulate (or not)

I was having a chat with Roger Steare the other day about whether regulation in some industries is more necessary than others (Roger is a Professor of Organisational Ethics and a fellow at ResPublica). We agreed in the principle that over-regulating, regardless of industry, doesn’t lead to sustainable practices (take a look at the banking industry). Self-regulating generally leads to more durable settlements, however agreeing on the principles can be challenging. Take a look at the Retail Lending Initiative, a great idea to help promote better practices within the Credit Card industry that failed to get adopted due to challenges in getting stakeholders to agree a common way forward (click here to read more). So what about self-regulation in the gaming industry? I think this does make sense in many respects. There’s a risk that developing acres of legislation will actually encourage the undesirable outcomes that the legislation is intended to stop. And the operators who are already creating sustainable profits in a responsible way will be unfortunately leveled by a system that sets rules that promotes the wrong behaviours (see Tim Cowen’s blog). However, for self-regulation to work, the dialogue must embrace all industry’s stakeholders…