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Gambling Commission Spring Conference – Facing the Future Road Map for Gambling Research and Regulation 

  1. Welcome – Katherine Diamond (Chief Counsel for the Gambling Commission)
  2. Opening Remarks – Sarah Gardner (Acting Chief Executive of the Gambling Commission)
  3. David Halpern CBE – Key Note Speaker – founding director of the Behavioural Insights Team
    • David made several interesting points about decision making based on choices offered. For example, lowering the maximum deposit limits as the maximum option acts as an anchor – the higher the ‘highest option’ the higher people set their limits. Allowing individuals to type their own deposit limit also lead to lower limits set by customers
    • He also discussed the problems surrounding symmetry of friction within a customer journey- you can dial it up (withdrawing deposit, cancelling accounts) or down (joining, upping thresholds), depending on the aim which can be dangerous.
    • David put forward a proposal of enforced breaks for online operators 3 or 6 seconds enforced. Similar to an app called 1 sec that you can download to your phone. Overall a very interesting key note with some unusual observations which can be easily applied to the industry.
  4. Building a Shared Data Future under the Statutory Gambling Levy
    • Facilitator – Ben Haden (Director of Research and Statistics at the GC)
    • Panel – Andy Boyd (Director of UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration), Sam McGreggor (Deputy Director of Smart Data Research UK), James Skruton (SRS Head of Data and Environment for the Office of National Statistics) (Partner of ADI UK), Sukriti Verma (the Head of Analysis for Sport and Gambling for DCMS), Dr David Zendal (Director of Smart Data Donation Services)
    • Nothing of much note for the industry within this panel, the key drivers of the conversation were the research bodies discussing how important data sets are and making the case for operators sharing all of their customer data with the research teams to help with evidence backed policy setting. It appears the research bodies are trying to use the statutory levy to access this data. When asked whether such data could in turn be made available to an individual from the industry (as an accredited researcher), the research bodies were extremely hesitant. Reading between the lines – this would be a no.
    • UKRI seem to be in a difficult position regarding the levy due to a reluctance to liaise directly with operators. 
  5. Gambling related harm: approaches to measurements and insights from underrepresented groups (Evidence Theme 3: Gambling-related harm and vulnerability)
    • Facilitator: Sue Cox (Member, LEAP)
    • Presenters: Dr Naomi Muggleton (Associate Professor Warwick), James Close (Associate Professor in Medicine and Psychology at Peninsula Medical School), Dr Mercy Denedo (Associate Professor Accounting, Durham), Dr Liz Riley (Head of Research and Evaluation Betknowmore)
    • This sadly related to female victims of domestic abuse, that was linked to Gambling, as well as other issues such as alcohol abuse. They were linking domestic abuse with Gambling addiction, both of partners having spent all family money and indeed women turning to Gambling as both a means to get away from the difficulties of life, as well as seeing it as an opportunity to make money. It was not really of benefit for our work, as these were individual cases per se. It was used just to highlight the issue that it is not just the gambler that is affected.
  6. Illegal Gambling – Developing the Evidence Base (Evidence Scheme 6- Illegal Gambling and Crime)
    • Facilitator – Ian Angus (Director of Policy at Gambling Commission)
    • Presenters – Tim Livesley (Head of Data Innovation Hub at the Gambling Commission), Tom Smith (Data Scientist for the Gambling Commission)
    • Panel – Jonathan Heath (Head of Gambling Duties Policy Team at HMRC), Peter Eerligh, Helen Walton (Chief Commercial Officer and Founder of G Gaming)
    • GC and HMRC are working together to try and negotiate where the illegal market sits, including navigating any potential ‘pinch points’ (advertising, social media, payment providers etc) to try and quell the spread of illegal sites
    • The GC’s data on the illegal gambling markets do not include any access through a VPN, which means that they have lowered/levelled off their figures based on their own decisions. Furthermore, all of their data is based off one metric, so they are aware it is not perfect. The Online Safety Act resulted in the doubling of VPN usage back in July/August last year. There was a slight decline towards the end of the period, but it is still a 40% increase on before.
    • There is a clear distinction within the illegal gambling conversation between an unlicensed operator and an operator licensed in another jurisdiction. An example was given of Stake.com who are not using malicious advertising techniques but still received a huge amount of traction due to the level of customer service they offer. This is partly due to the low friction for customers, but also the higher RTP and bonus structures.
    • Questions were asked about whether the plan to disrupt illegal markets by targeting suppliers would be effective, as any non-UK centric suppliers would simply switch off the UK. Overall a very interesting conversation which highlighted the nuances of this area.
  7. Gambling, AI and the Consumer Experience – (Evidence Theme 5  Product, Characteristics and Risk)
    • Facilitator – Brad Enright (Director of Strategy at the Gambling Commission) (not AI expert)
    • Panel – Sandy Chidley (Evidence Lead for Gambling and Lotteries for DCMS) (not AI expert), Leon Green (Member of the Lived Experience Advisory Panel) (not AI Expert) and Daphne Tsatsoulis (Head of Data Science at Flutter) (AI Expert)
    • AI has been used to personalise customers experiences for many years now, and there were discussions around the boundary between helpful suggestions versus predatory tactics. Using AI to flag worrying customer behaviour and then interact can be helpful, but it must be explainable and transparent. For this reason, Gen AI has actually not got very far for customer facing activity, although some operators are using it to provide summaries of a customer’s profile/journey to help inform interactions.
    • Concerns about chatbots were raised, particularly the fact they can’t pick up on emotions and shouldn’t be ‘left alone’ to liaise directly with customers.
    • Safety by design and good collaboration should at the heart of gambling innovation. For example, a good use of AI could be summaries of Terms and Conditions to customers to help operators ensure they are fair and open.
    • Talk of ‘Safety profiles’, in which operators let customers see their safety profiles and any concerns. This seems short sighted – and gives customers the knowledge of how to avoid being detected.
  8. Growing up online: children and young people’s digital footprints and pathways to gambling (Evidence Theme 1: Early gambling experiences and gateway products)
    • Facilitator: Matt Losing (Member, LEAP)
    • Presenters: Sumita Deb (Senior Online Audience Analyst OffCom), George Webster (Director Humankind Research)
    • Panel: Donna Bateman (Strategy and Engagement Manager, GC), Bal Kaur (Member LEAP)
    • This concentrated on a study from 12 to 17-year-olds. However, Gambling was not the focus and just looked at how addictive social media and online content could be. Interestingly, YouTube was deemed to be less harmful than Snapchat and Instagram, for example.
    • Focus from a separate speaker, linked loot boxes to Gambling in later life. There was also a strong link with football, with people taking social benefit from placing a bet on teams as it was part of their Saturday social and conversation with other friends.
  9. Engagement with Purpose – how operator practices impact consumer experiences. (Evidence theme 4 – The Impact of Operator Practices)
    • Facilitator – Kirsty Caldwell (Interim Chair of the Industry Forum)
    • Presenter – Dr Maris Catania (Director of Fair Sustainability for Leo Vegas), Nigel Chamberlain (Operations Director for Retail Support Entain), Sue Wade (Head of Gambling Policy at Flutter)
    • Customer research is seen as vital to ensure genuine engagement, a current problem area for most operators. Emails are seen as day to day and non-urgent (and often deleted), but text or push notifications are seen as more urgent or event lead. Over messaging makes people check out and leave to go to other operators and personalisation is more important than volume. Control and boundaries are seen as non-negotiable, operators have to earn the right and build the trust to be able to have the conversations that you need to have for customer protection. Phone calls tend not to work for younger generations (who do not answer the phone), but voice notes may be explored as a better option
    • Several operators have seen a big take up of safer gambling tools when they have changed the way they interact with their customers. For example emailing a survey once a year received 1% response rate, whereas an in-product version produced 17% responses.  Timing has also helped for safer gambling interactions – when a customer is actually on the site (and consequently in the frame of mind to think about gambling) is the best time.
    • Customers can also be incentivised to use safer gambling tools, for example a campaign was run with Pure Gym where if you signed up to the safer gambling tools, you got a free gym pass. This doubled the use of a profit and loss campaign from 12.6% to 21.5% (compared to just using a standard SG prompt). Wellness and safety connections are viewed as very positive, generally agreed that free spins or similar in exchange for signing up to SG tools would not be helpful (or appropriate)
    • Some CI/SG suggestions:
      • Providing customers with a clock of how much time they are spending on a siteIndividualised outcomes from interactionsTailored approaches to interactions based on thresholds/triggersEnhanced staff training for those dealing with interactionsEvaluate effectiveness of CI’s by comparing pre and post CI behaviour 
  10. Closing Remarks
    • Closing remarks from Charles Counsell (Interim Chair of Gambling Commission) and Tim Miller (Director of Research and Policy at the Gambling Commission)
    • The research posters generally all had central anti-gambling themes:
      • Proximity to gambling shops and gambling harms
      • Effects of Interventional public health laws and regulations intended to reduce gambling-related harms: a narrative systematic review
      • Matched Betting: Risk-free Opportunity or emerging source of gambling harm?
      • Gambling behaviour, disordered gambling and commodities
      • Using complex system dynamics to analyse the relationship between contemporary gambling policy and big data
      • Consent Banners, Dark Patterns and GDPR infringements in online gambling: evidence from a systematic audit and online experiment
    • Tim Miller – closed with statements including we “have to get comfortable with nuance” because that’s what the data and evidence shows, and “Uncertainty can never be irradicated, we have to find ways to live with it”.