Staying safe in the holiday season

As we enter holiday season, a period in which people tend to bet more, Aspire Global understands the industry-wide benefits of promoting sustainable business practices.

To this end, our responsible gambling team has undertaken additional training that is specifically focused on identifying problem behaviour.

The programme incorporates lessons from Gamcare, the leading UK provider of information, advice and for anyone affected by gambling harms, developing skills on motivational interactions and conversations with at-risk customers. 

With cutting-edge research providing fresh insights into the issues involved, we also hosted an interactive talk at our offices by Dr Reece Bush of Bournemouth University, about safer gambling research and collaboration with the industry.

Our wide-ranging focus at this time of year is not solely on the ways in which stakeholders can promote responsible behaviours among players, but also sustainability in its wider context.

We consider ourselves to be pioneers in adopting this mindset, but as Sustainability Manager at Aspire Global I am seeing an increasing number of similar roles to mine springing up.

This is a positive trend that is being driven by a variety of stakeholders, not least investors. Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG), which evaluates the collective work towards achieving social and environmental sustainability, is increasingly being analysed by potential investors so that they can understand the material risk and growth opportunities within a company.

A safer experience also incorporates responsible marketing. At Aspire Global we utilise sophisticated software to analyse redirects through tracking clicks.

This means our operator partners can determine which s are using a brand to intercept traffic through its own tracking links, or even redirecting to third-party sites.

It is a game-changer in instilling confidence in operators that irresponsible marketing is being picked up automatically and efficiently. It limits the amount of such content that gets put out there, as the system ensures it will be detected. 

If sustainability is integrated into a company’s DNA, then it is better equipped from a technical and organisational perspective when it comes to absorbing new regulatory trends or entering new markets.

Particularly in our industry in which a lot of consolidation takes place, there is a strong imperative to select partners and M&A activity with companies that are similarly aligned from a sustainability perspective.