Shelley White, CEO of the Responsible Gambling Council (RGC), outlined the need for cooperation when issuing gambling regulations.

Talking to gambling industry insider CasinoBeats’ 100 Club edition, White expressed that the gaming community is in no way different from all other sectors that require a strong interconnectivity for growth.

Networking, however, requires strong internal knowledge. When asked about the level of network knowledge in the gaming sector, White shared her views with CasinoBeats on the current challenges in the field, future opportunities, and the importance of being a leader when looking to cooperate.

Starting off with the journey that got her to RGC and where she sits today, White reflected: “Actually, my experience outside of gambling has been a bit longer than my experience in gambling; this month is my fifth year with the responsible gambling council.

“And prior to that I had leadership roles in the non-profit sector, the global non-profit sector, with the YMCA, the United Way and the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

“And in those organisations my role involved taking social issues and creating and bringing people together, multi-sectoral partners from the public, private, non-profit sectors, to create systems changes, and to develop policies and programs to address root causes of issues.”

The discussion then went into the topic of developments in AI, machine learning, and data analytics, and how this has all benefited the coordination of responsible gambling strategies.

Another important aspect of building strategies, White pointed out, are industry collaborations. She said: “That’s the value of working with partners and the value of understanding the values of behaviours of people who live in various parts of the world, you realise that you can’t take a cookie cutter approach to developing regulation or standards in order for responsible gambling regulations, programs, and services to be effective.”

The RGC CEO then went on to address the current difficulties that envelop collaborative efforts:

“We’ve solved all of the easy problems, the opportunities and challenges that we’re facing, given the technology that’s available, the complexity in terms of demographics, the differences that exist in the different kinds of gambling channels, makes this much more complex.

“So, what is essential now in terms of tackling these complex opportunities and challenges is a collaborative approach, bringing together collectively our knowledge, our skills, our resources, our perspectives, and having holistic debates and discussion and bringing together our resources to identify the key questions that we want to address and identity the best solutions going forward. So, collaboration, this 360-degree approach, is essential.”