The ICEVOX environs received a total redesign this year, with the usual office-bound space transformed into an open environment with coloured stages, modern decor and atmospheric moving lights in the ceiling. Approaching the Counsel area, a short way into the regulatory enforcement debate, I noted two panels of benches, one in red and one green, with participants encouraged to sit on one or the other according to their view on the proposition.
While it was a little tough to identify each voice in the debate by name, there were plenty of interesting points being raised. Participants included William Hill CEO Philip Bowcock, who made the salient point that wealth is relative and that affordability is perhaps a more important measure to base deposit restrictions around, rather than having fixed spend limits imposed, whether by regulators or the industry itself.
Much of the debate seemed to come down to what types of regulation are actually productive, as much as who should be imposing them. It was broadly agreed by participants that the industry “isn’t there yet” in terms of consumer protection, with one participant on the green Yes side of the panel, Sparks Advisory CEO Dian Niron, contending that until very recently across Europe the gaming industry was a sort of Wild West.
In time, she said, after some further robustness brought about through enhanced regulation, there would eventually be room for more flexibility in enforcement once a certain standard bar was set and in place industry-wide.
Habet Addiction Healthcare Ltd. Chairman Don Croom argued that therapists and healthcare professionals need to engage with gamblers within the environments in which they play, in order to enable those professionals to best help prevent and treat problem gamblers. Biometric technology which will help identify and track problem gambling tendencies amongst customers is developing rapidly, he said.
Gaming firms’ attitudes toward their VIPs – and the reluctance many firms have to acknowledge publicly that a high percentage of their returns come from a small number of players, some of whom may or may not be behaving responsibly – also emerged as a point of discussion. The stakes for gaming venues are high in terms of how to address responsible gambling while not eliminating profit margins, and it’s a particularly delicate question when it comes to high rollers.
The elephant in the room, of course, is cited in the headline: the word “impossible”. In an era of higher regulatory enforcement, with financial penalties flying, are we setting the bar for customer protection impossibly, intractably high? Many in the industry would argue that we need self-regulation in order to prevent further government regulation from being imposed, but it feels honestly a little bit like trying to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is going to take time for the industry to come to terms with what’s truly needed in terms of customer diligence and to develop their strategies for delivering this.
