Safer by Design: How can collaboration help design safer gambling?

Partnering with Demos, Playtech hosted roundtables with industry, experts and policy stakeholders to discuss minimising harm in gambling products through collaboration.

Categories

The research explores how collaboration between industry, policymakers, academics, and support services can help design safer gambling environments and reduce gambling-related harm. Key findings:

• Bridging Research and Practice: There is a need to better translate theoretical research into practical interventions. Personalised tools and early interventions can help protect at-risk users, but must be tested and tailored to different user groups.
• Improving Tool Engagement: Safer gambling tools (e.g. deposit limits) are underused. Making them more accessible, intuitive, and positively framed can increase uptake. Nudges and default settings can help, but must be balanced with user autonomy.
• Redefining Gambling in the Digital Age: The definition of gambling must evolve to include digital products like loot boxes and crypto trading. These often escape regulation but can foster addictive behaviors, especially among youth.
• Fostering Cross-Sector Collaboration: A shared, standardised data infrastructure is needed to enable research and policy development. Lessons from sectors like pharmaceuticals and social media show this is possible with the right governance.
• Integrating Support Services: Gambling support must be better integrated with healthcare and financial services. A systems-based approach is needed to address comorbidities like mental health and substance abuse, and to support vulnerable groups including women and underage users.

These insights support a collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach to safer gambling, emphasizing shared data, integrated care, and adaptive regulation. For full details, please refer to the complete document.