Betting Business Bulletin 13th November 2017
GambleAware to publish donations to create ‘peer pressure’
GambleAware has written to stakeholders across the gambling industry telling them that from April they will publish details of what they have donated to the problem gambling charity.
The wider industry’s contributions to GambleAware have come to prominence as part of the government’s review of gambling.
Ministers have warned they will consider a mandatory levy on gambling operators if they do not step up funding for research, education and treatment.
The gambling industry contributes more than £8 million a year to GambleAware, but the charity is looking to raise £10m to deliver the National Responsible Gambling Strategy.
In the letter GambleAware warns that seven months into its current financial year it is 60 per cent short of the £10m target.
From April 1 GambleAware will ask all companies to “self-certify” what proportion of gross gambling yield (GGY) their donation represents – they are expected to donate 0.1 per cent – and will publish details of donations on its website.
GambleAware chief executive Marc Etches told the Racing Post the charity had not done this in the past due to concerns over areas such as data protection and commercial sensitivity.
He added: “We have reached the point where we think there is value in publishing this, not just for transparency purposes but in order to create some peer pressure among companies and across sectors.”
Etches rebutted claims made by some within the gambling industry that the 0.1 per cent figure represents the total donation to tackling problem gambling, not just to GambleAware.
“I cannot believe there is a chief executive out there who doesn’t understand – and if they don’t understand then they have a responsibility to understand – that the whole purpose behind these arrangements is to deliver a national responsible gambling strategy and GambleAware is the primary agent for delivery for much of that,” he said.
Etches added: “At the beginning of last year the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board published what it considered was necessary for us to deliver the national responsible gambling strategy – £9.3m and £9.5m over the two years.
“In order to do that our estimation is that our target is a minimum of £10m. If you set aside the National Lottery for this purpose, that is 0.1 per cent of the £10 billion gross gaming yield in the British gambling sector.”
Etches said he believed that figure of £10m must rise. He said: “Last year the treatment services we funded saw 8,000 people. We might be looking at maybe as many as 50,000 people who at any one time might benefit from treatment services. So the gap is self-evidently large and the cost to fill that gap is significantly more.”
There has been criticism of the contribution to GambleAware from the lottery and its operator Camelot. If GambleAware were to receive 0.1 per cent of the GGY from the National Lottery it would amount to more than £3m.
Etches said: “We are having ongoing conversations with Camelot and I have to say it is proving very constructive. I think they’ve understood what it is that we are asking.”
He added: “In relation to Camelot it is not just about money and what I am concerned about there is when you look at the player reach of the National Lottery it is a matter of numbers.
“So in our view they do have a particular responsibility in helping get out, for example, safe player messaging and also information about where to go for help if you need it. At the moment 40,000 retail outlets do not have the national gambling helpline or ‘BeGambleAware’ displayed.
“I don’t think that’s right but to be fair we have had a very constructive conversation about how they might address that.”
Etches also had strong words for representatives of the wider gambling industry.
He said: “The various sectors in this industry do themselves no service at all in battling with each other. If the industry as a whole wants to sort out its reputation then frankly it needs to be much better represented to both politics and regulators but also to the general public.
“The wider industry does itself no service whatsoever by constantly having this factional infighting.”
Playtech shares fall on profit warning
Shares in gambling technology company Playtech dropped by more than a fifth last Thursday after the company issued a profit warning.
In a trading update, Playtech said profits would be around five per cent lower than expectations.
Playtech blamed its contract with Sun Bingo which it said was “challenging due to lengthier seasonality and the relaunch of the new Sun Bingo site”.
It also said that there has been an impact from “recent changing market conditions in certain parts of Asia”.
The company added: “Whilst it had been expected that activity would return to normalised levels in a relatively short timeframe, we are now not expecting any significant improvement in 2017.”
Playtech said they were looking to complete more mergers and acquisitions and that it was in “active discussions with a range of gaming businesses consistent with executing this strategy and with the expectation that the relative contribution from Asia to the group will consistently reduce over time”.
Playtech’s share price plummeted following the news, ending Thursday down more than 22 per cent at 768p. On Monday night it had recovered to 826p.
Simon French, analyst at stockbroker Cenkos Securities, said in a note: “The stock has been strong in recent days and this update will concern the market particularly given the disruption in Asia.”
Essa report dominated by tennis
Tennis yet again dominated the 72 cases of suspicious betting reported to the relevant authorities by international sports betting integrity body Essa in the third quarter of the year.
There were 46 cases in tennis, followed by football and table tennis with eight cases each, basketball with four cases and two cases each for badminton, snooker and volleyball.
A total of 152 cases of suspicious betting have been identified and reported by Essa and its members during the first three quarters of 2017.
Essa secretary general Khalid Ali said: “The figures for this quarter again demonstrate the ongoing threat that faces the regulated betting sector and our sports and regulatory authority partners. Essa has redoubled its efforts to meet that challenge and invested in a number of key initiatives and activities.
“Partnership working remains at the heart of that approach, with our recent betting integrity event and general stakeholder engagement programme a testament to that.”
Hills cleared by advertising watchdog
The advertising watchdog has cleared William Hill following a complaint against a television advert for the bookmaker’s ‘#Your Odds’ promotion.
One scene included review ratings for the William Hill app from five publications, including a five-star rating from the Daily Record newspaper.
The complainant, who understood that the Daily Record had never published a review of the William Hill app, challenged whether the five-star rating was genuine.
However, the Advertising Standards Agency found that William Hill held adequate evidence to demonstrate the five-star rating attributed to the Daily Record was genuine and concluded that the advert was unlikely to mislead.
Garcia to host SBC awards
The SBC awards, now in their fourth year, will feature 28 categories this year – 11 for operator/affiliates and 17 for suppliers.
The event takes place at The Artillery Garden in London on December 5 with Luis Garcia, a Champions League winner with Liverpool, one of the hosts.
The coveted Bookmaker of the Year award has a shortlist of eight with last year’s winner bet365 again among the names. This is sure to be a hotly contested category with Sky Bet, Unibet and William Hill likely to be the main competition to bet365.
The Football Bookmaker of the year pitches last year’s winner Sky Bet against Betbright (2016 winners of innovation in football betting) and bet365 as well as Unibet, Favbet and 1Xbet.
The newly created Racing Bookmaker of the Year has a deep field with some strong entries in the shape of Boylesports, bet365 and William Hill.
Other notable categories are mobile bookmaker of the year, eSports bookmaker of the year, and socially responsible bookmaker of the year.