William Hill launches ‘Nobody harmed by gambling’ initiative
UK operator William Hill has launched a new responsible gambling initiative with the goal of seeing ‘nobody harmed by gambling’.
The initiative is being led by Hill’s new director of sustainability, Lyndsay Wright. © William Hill plc.
The new initiative has been introduced by Lyndsay Wright, the bookmaker’s first director of sustainability and is split into nine commitments aimed at tackling problem gambling in the UK.
These nine commitments are divided between three categories: immediate actions, long-term programmes and wider collaboration.
Among the new initiatives are a Responsible Gambling Innovation Fund and a mandatory loss limit tools for all customers that could be deemed at-risk of problem gambling.
Wright was Hill’s director of strategy and investor relations after joining the company in 2008 before moving into the newly created role.
Speaking about the new initiative, Wright said:
Getting this right is critical to our long-term success as a business. We want our customers to enjoy gambling as part of their leisure time and to stay betting with us for the long term – which means only gambling what they can afford. We’ve taken steps towards solving this – but it’s just not enough. That’s why we’ve set the bold ambition that nobody is harmed by gambling… The fact that my role covers both strategy and sustainability, and reports to our CFO, shows the priority this now has within William Hill. This is a long-term ambition. We need to test and learn to find what will have a real impact on the problem. And we’ll share what we learn with everyone else with a stake in the issue – to help us move faster, together. – Lyndsay Wright, William Hill director of sustainability
Nobody harmed by gambling: A long-term goal
As per the name of the initiative, William Hill’s ultimate aim is for no-one to be harmed through gambling.
Statistics published by the group in an infographic show that there at 430,000 problem gamblers in the UK with a further 2m people at risk. The operator sees problem gambling as a consequence of three factors: player, environment and product, which lead to problems that can then affect peoples’ lives.
This strategy is being launched in response as the operator looks to take hold of the responsibility that comes with being one of the biggest gambling companies in the world. To do so, it will focus on four crucial areas: All gamblers, those at risk, gamblers experiencing harm and colleagues.
Additionally, there are nine commitments specified by the bookmaker. In the immediate term, Hill will pilot mandatory tools aimed at helping at risk customers, offer customers more data to help them make informed choices, and increase its training with other responsible gambling experts.
In the long-term, the operator will educate its employees around problem gambling, create a Responsible Gambling Innovation Fund, and create KPIs towards responsible gambling.
There will also be wider collaboration efforts, with the bookmaker crowd-sourcing new ideas with experts, pushing the entire industry to adopt mandatory account-based play, and push change on how gambling is advertised on TV, especially during live sporting events.
