The Neosurf takeover of iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, continues and the theme today returns to player protection.

Andrea McGeachin is joined by Bill Pascrell III, Partner at Princeton Public Affairs Group, who provides an update on the responsible gaming (RG) space in the US.

Bill starts by saying that it is an “exciting time” in the responsible gaming space however, despite the optimism, he is critical of a new responsible gaming organisation set up by some of the US’s biggest operators, which he describes as “more fluff than stuff”.

The pair then move on to what the solution is to solve issues around RG and Bill says that for him there is no “bulletproof final answer” instead it is an ongoing process. 

He added: “Whether it’s sports betting online, horse racing, lottery or casino and poker, we have to be far more advanced in self-regulation. So I think the solutions are an ever-evolving real commitment from the leadership of all these companies to really impute in their employees the importance of RG. It’s not just about chasing customers to double down and it’s certainly not encouraging customers to continue with bad behaviour.”

He also makes the point that operators need to be better at getting out messaging around RG “proactively rather than reactively”.

An issue for regulators and those responsible for RG measures within operators is the need to balance measures with the playing experience for customers.

Bill describes how he believes there is a culture within operators that commercial teams do not want to work with RG departments as they believe they are limiting commercial opportunities. 

He explained: “ The problem is, when you get into a room and you have commercial people who are doing business development and sales and the RG people walk in, heads hang low. Why? Because they have a culture and an intuition to believe they’re stopping me from gaining my bonus this year. But what they don’t understand is, okay, so if you get your bonus this year, what about continuing so you’re able to get bonuses, maybe a little bit less, but continuously over years? What we need to produce is more leadership that does it by example and not dictate or caveat. And educate the employees that it’s important for us to all embrace protecting the most precious commodity, our license and our consumers.”