As reported on its website, in line with its ongoing call for greater collaboration, the Gambling Commission has trialled a “co-creation workshop”, that:

• “brings stakeholders together to explore a key industry issue” and
• “involves multiple participants from different backgrounds sharing ideas in a collaborative, open forum”.

The initial two workshops have been directed at improving approaches to minimising gambling related harm.  The first workshop focused on communicating safer gambling messages with low and medium-risk consumers and the second looked at the use of data to identify consumers for potential interaction.

The Commission states that it “chose an independent agent to help organise one of the two events and invited different participant groups tailored to the subject under discussion. The design was centred on group work and encouraged dialogue on individual challenges to gain an understanding of alternative approaches to design and evaluation processes.  The interactive nature allowed all parties to share best practice and help each other find the best way forward for these complex subjects”. 

More information on the first workshop mentioned above can be found on the Commission’s communication of safer gambling messages blog. It states as follows:

Our first workshop looked into safer gambling messaging to low and moderate-risk gamblers. Participants included three Gambling Commission experts, 12 representatives from a number of major operators and, importantly, 12 consumers.

Making gambling fairer and safer for consumers is the ultimate aim of the Commission. Exploring the ways in which safer gambling messages are communicated to customers required the input of multiple operators to make meaningful progress. We were also keen to include the very people who could be the main recipients of these messages.

During the day we employed various methods and tools to paint a picture of existing practises, gain feedback from customers and look for opportunities for change.

This was the first time we’d brought consumers and operators together to talk about safer gambling messaging and it was really interesting to watch the two groups interact in a positive way. Plus, bringing operators and consumers together in an open forum allowed us to share challenges and identify potential future collaborations.

Our key learnings from the workshop included:

• Hearing the voice of the customer, including what they liked about existing messages and how they’d react to new methods of communication
• Understanding how operators engage with consumers to inform their own approach to customer interaction regarding safer gambling messaging
• Identifying and sharing best practice

The day provided many ideas for change operators could consider when planning for future activities. Our findings have been written up in our report. To find out more about other projects we’ve been working on read our guidance on behavioural Insights into reducing risky play in online environments.

Readers should note the above report and its findings are for operators to consider in addition to the LCCP.

It is clear from this final comment that the Commission expects licensed operators to take full account of the report, that can be downloaded below. The guidance to which reference is made in the penultimate paragraph above is the “Customer interaction guidance for remote gambling operators” on which we reported in February last year. Although that guidance was directed at remote operators, the Commission has indicated that it will produce guidance for land-based operators in due course.

The Commission also states on its new website postings that, over the next few months, it will be:

• working on new projects “to test different forms of engagement helping to further increase the work undertaken”,
• including insight from other industries and regulators to maximise effectiveness and efficiencies as the programme evolves and
• in the next few weeks, launching a consultation that will look at formal requirements relating to customer interaction that are contained within the LCCP.