New research from Bet Buddy and GTECH: Analysis of demographic and behavioural data from internet gamblers and those who self-exclude

We are very happy to announce that the latest output from Bet Buddy's and GTECH's research collaboration will be published in the Journal of Gambling Studies. This new peer-reviewed paper focuses on self-exclusion as one of the main responsible gaming interventions, and is split into three sections. Firstly, it sets out a three tier model for assessing at-risk gambling behaviours which examines player exhibited, declared and inferred  behaviour. This is an important model that we will be building on in our research projects during 2014 and beyond. Secondly, the paper presents a literature review relating to who self-excludes and whether self-exclusion is effective. Finally, it reports the results of an analysis of the exhibited behaviour of internet self-excluders as sampled from a research cohort of over 240,000 internet gaming accounts self-excluders.

Bet Buddy will be presenting the research outputs during the New Horizons in Responsible Gaming conference in Vancouver in January 2014, hosted by British Columbia Lottery Corporation. Simo Dragicevic, Bet Buddy CEO, will also be participating in a panel discussion titled Player Behaviour Panel Presentation: What Have We Learned from “Big Data” in Responsible Gaming? Does it Change the Way We Play?

Bet Buddy and GTECH have been collaborating on research into responsible gaming since 2011. This latest paper has been co-authored with  Dr. Jonathan Parke, Christian Percy and Aleksandar Kudic from GTECH. Previous research published by Bet Buddy, GTECH and City University London analysed casino data in relation to high risk behavioural markers and was published in International Gambling Studies.

Moving in the Right Direction - The 13th Annual GamCare Conference

The 13th GamCare Annual Conference took place last November (2012) in London, UK. The conference hosted a panel discussion titled 'Moving in the Right Direction' which included presentations and discussions on social media, self-exclusion and social marketing. In this video Simo Dragicevic from Bet Buddy discusses proposals on strengthening the UK's self-exclusion processes to better protect consumers.

The presentation is followed by a panel discussion that was chaired by GamCare Deputy Chairman John Hagan. The panel included Professor Peter Collins, former head of Salford University's Centre for the Study of Gambling, whose talk on designing effective social marketing campaigns is also included. The other conference presentation videos, including Professor Jon Grant's session (Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago), can be viewed on the GamCare website.

The Product Lifecycle and Responsible Gaming

We are currently collaborating with GamCare and the University of Salford on a project to research multi-operator self-exclusion. The research is examining self-exclusion in a number of contexts, including examining the drivers behind industry adoption of new responsible gaming tools and standards. The research is jointly funded by The UK Technology Strategy Board and the Economic and Social Research Council.

The evolution of technological standards and products follows a specific path according to Wardley (2011).  Wardley, in this video, outlines a model of technology adoption, ideas diffusion and productisation, arguing that activities evolve through a common pathway, starting with innovation, custom development, through to productisation and services and eventually commoditisation. At the commoditisation stage, technology and processes are commonly predictable, repeatable and measurable. Business is ‘warfare’ and a ‘catfight’ argues Wardley, as market forces drive competition, product development, and product adoption through the lifecycle.

As we noted in an earlier blog on industry dynamics, the gambling industry is one where innovation is becoming increasingly critical to success. There is a significant emphasis on creating new and exciting games and content across multiple channels, with new features being  released in increasingly shorter timescales to gain maximum impact and advantage. However, it can be argued that the same emphasis on research and development and innovation has not been seen in the evolution of responsible gaming tools. This is arguably due to the notion that, in general, responsible gaming is viewed a compliance activity by the industry, with operators in effect focusing on delivering the mandatory requirements to ensure they able to compete in regulated markets (although there certainly are exceptions). Having assessed the evolution of responsible gaming features using Wardley's product lifecycle curve, we can see this broad trend emerging.

When examining what drives the productisation of responsible gaming tools one should consider the broader macro industry trends impacting commerce, for example the continuing switch from land-based to internet commerce across all industries. Consumers are, for example, increasingly sure about the security and safety of online payments, which has resulted in a multitude of internet payment service offerings that a gambling operator can leverage which is ultimately driving to the commoditisation of online payments. 

In addition to cross-industry mega trends, regulation has (unsurprisingly) a considerable influence on the evolution of responsible gaming products and services. Responsible gaming features which are now licensing requirements in regulated markets, such as self-exclusion, are firmly ingrained in the product architectures of all internet gaming player account management system product offerings, and are moving to the point of becoming a commoditised offering and responsible gaming 'hygiene factor'. However, some gaming operators have begun to differentiate these hygiene factors, for example by developing self-exclusion by gaming vertical which in effect allow players to self-exclude from specific game types e.g. casino, sports betting, lottery, etc. Such features are currently not widespread and are being developed by operators who see competitive advantage in these offerings. These features will progress from the custom build phase to product/service stage if more operators see this as a source of differentiation. Alternatively, future regulations could demand operators to offer additional responsible gaming tools if they are deemed to provide greater safeguards to the consumer, which would begin elevating these features to 'hygiene factor' status.

Muli-operator self-exclusion solutions, such as VeriPlay, are being developed by software firms such as Bet Buddy in collaboration with industry partners in the absence of regulatory requirements in the UK. If such services are viewed as a compliance activity by the industry, then there is a risk that they will not receive sufficient priority and investment i.e. operators will be unlikley to prioritise the development of a non-mandatory responsible gaming feature ahead of mobile game development, for example. Although we do note there are some excellent responsible gaming initiatives have been developed and led by the industry (see the WLA and ESSA, for example). Nonetheless, this places regulators in a difficult position, in that as regulations remain largely static once defined and implemented, technology innovation continues on a steep upward gradient. Regulations are therefore at risk of becoming quickly out-dated, and if all responsible gaming innovation is left solely in the hands of market forces, there is a risk that neccessary developments in player protection are not prioritised and developed as quickly as they should be given operators' finite resources.

GamCare will be presenting initial research findings in April 2012 at the Responsible Gambling Council's Discovery 2012 Conference in Toronto, Canada.

Part One: Introducing VeriPlay, the Secure Cross-operator Self-exclusion Service

Self‐exclusion has been acknowledged as an important and effective means for players to protect themselves from excessive gambling by excluding themsleves from gambling for periods of time.  However gamblers can be their own worst enemy by excluding themselves from one operator and then betting with another.  This highlights a major weakness in the self‐exclusion process - self‐excluded players can sign‐up to different operators and continue gambling even though they have self‐excluded themselves from other sites.  Whilst the idea of providing the opportunity for a player to self-exclude from more than one operator is beneficial to the player, operators currently have no means of identifying whether their players have self‐excluded themselves from other online operators. 

Self-exclusion is a licensing requirement in many jurisdictions such as in the UK, which recorded 62,957 self-exclusions in 2009/10.  The published CEN Workshop Agreement on Remote Responsible Gambling Measures recommends that operators should offer self-exclusion for a minimum of six months.  Whilst the weakness in the self-exclusion process has been recognised by the industry for some time, complex issues and challenges have halted the adoption of an effective solution within the industry.  Today we are kicking off a series of initiatives related to our new cross-operator self-exclusion service called VeriPlay, with today’s post introducing some of the key concepts of how VeriPlay works. 

VeriPlay is a fast, safe and secure central counterparty solution developed to meet the need for an industry‐wide self‐exclusion service.   VeriPlay helps operators and the industry to more effectively use their player data to protect vulnerable players by undertaking an intermediary role in the self‐exclusion process.  As an intermediary VeriPlay will maintain a central database of self‐excluded players, known as the ‘grey list’.  Self‐excluded player details are safely and securely uploaded to VeriPlay using anonymised player data

Log-in via Secure Web Services or Portal 
Veriplay can be accessed either via secure web services or via a web portal.  Whilst we envisage that the majority operators will use web services to integrate with VeriPlay, since it enables low‐touch straight trough processing, like geo‐filtering and ID verification, a benefit of the web portal is that it allows for easy access for both land-based and online operators.

Operator Account Page 
Once an operator has a VeriPlay account they can quickly check to see whether any of their players are on the grey list via the Check Your Players functionality.  Operators can also safely and securely add self-excluded players to the grey list via the Share and Help functionality.

Operator data is always safe with VeriPlay. The service meets and exceeds industry security standards and a secure encryption algorithm ensures data always remains anonymous and meaningless to anyone except the operators sending and receiving the data.

VeriPlay’s player matching algorithm provides a grading of matching confidence for operators.  The service is configurable to add further data combinations that operators wish to use and can be configured to only provide 100% matches if required.  All VeriPlay matching results are automatically sent direct to the operator's mail box.

What Next?

The gambling industry has in the past tackled many of the CSR and sustainability issues on the front foot and in a collaborative manner with all stakeholders and such an approach is key for cross-operator self-exclusion to work.  We are now collaborating with a number of stakeholders to assess the next steps required to start rolling-out the service, including leading providers of problem gambling prevention and support services like GamCare, who are working in partnership with the industry and the University of Salford on self-exclusion and other gambling sustainability initiatives.

Responsible gaming codes and provisions require operators to take all available means to help identify and protect vulnerable players and VeriPlay is an important and progressive step towards meeting these obligations.  VeriPlaywill be of interest to any online gambling operator that puts responsible gaming at the heart of its business practices.  The more operators that use the service, the more effective it becomes, both in terms of player protection and reducing customer attrition.

We plan to organise a webinar to walk through in more detail how VeriPlay works and will post details of the webinar in due course.  If you are interested in using VeriPlay or would like to receive further information then please contact us.

How effective is Self-Exclusion? The story of Joyce May Ross

I’ve been speaking to a number of stakeholders within the industry in the past few weeks about player protection. What I’m hearing is that one of the reasons why the levels of problem gambling has remained consistently low is due to operators offering players the appropriate tools to help them to manage their play, such as self-exclusions and limits. Many stated that these features have proved very effective.

This weekend I read about Joyce May Ross, who is suing B.C. Lottery Corp for $331,000 for failing to stop her gambling after she asked them to through the corporation’s self-exclusion programme. So whose fault was it that she lost so much money? Do lotteries need to do more to help gamblers such as Joyce? And are they the best placed to monitor gamblers?

For the online industry, one of the challenges to implementing effective player protection in the area of self-exclusion is how does one prevent a self-excluded player signing-up to a different operator? Adopting a pan-European approach would make sense, such as developing a common database where operators share relevant data, but implementing such an initiative could prove very challenging.

So back to Joyce May Ross. The question is will more lawsuits follow? You can read the article here.