Safer Gambling Week 2023 Gets Started

Safer Gambling Week 2023 takes place from 13th – 19th November. This cross-industry initiative, which aims to stimulate conversations about safer gambling and raise awareness of the issues, the tools that operators make available and sources of advice and support, is now in its sixth year. At FTD Digital we’ll be supporting it (as we have done in previous years) on both our UK facing sites Best New Bingo Sites and WDW Bingo, by putting out safer gambling content on site and on social media and displaying the official Safer Gambling Week banner.

Last week I was lucky enough to be invited to attend the EGR London Summit, an annual event which is a very important part of the run-up to Safer Gambling Week.

The event took place at County Hall near Waterloo and brought together experts from many different parts of the industry to participate in a day of talks, panels and round table discussions on the general theme of safer gambling. Some of the topics covered were:

• Game design
• ESG (a subject I’m particularly interested in) and the language of player protection
• Affordability checks and how they are not the same as markers of harm
• The latest news on the consultations following the publication of the White Paper
• The proposed mandatory RET levy on all UK operators (RET = research, education and treatment for gambling harms. Currently there is a voluntary levy).

It’s really great to see how far the iGaming industry has come in the last ten years in terms of player protection, and fascinating to hear the takes of people from elsewhere in the industry. Many thanks to EGR for having me!