GamProtect, a safety solution facilitated by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), held its launch event at Prospero House, London, on Wednesday 11 September 2024.
The event, for which Gambling Insider was in attendance, began the day with an introductory speech by new BGC CEO Grainne Hurst. Despite being in the role for less than a week, Grainne explained that she had been part of the development of GamProtect since its inception in 2020.
In February 2020, a case was put forward for the development of a scheme like GamProtect; a universal database of sorts where players showing “demonstable” gambling harms can have their data shared among a network of operators, keeping players safe across the gaming industry as a whole. Following several years of development, GamProtect was the result.
The system went live last April, with operators including Flutter, Entain and bet365 participating and being founding members of the project, offering financial aid as well in the project's development. This is reflected in the day's line-up, which included Entain CPO Andreas Klug and Entain Interim DPO for UK & Ireland Jacqueline Gazey, who are participating in a panel later in the day.
Soon, GamProtect Chair of the Board and Gamesys Operations Managing Director Kane Purdy came to the stage.
He began his speech by congratulating Grainne on her new role. “I'm excited to see how her personal attributes impact the BCG and stakeholders," he said. Purdy wished her success, before beginning his main talk.
Purdy has worked in the industry for almost 20 years, and in that time has seen significant industry change. The shift towards online gaming, Covid-19 and the white paper are all memories for Purdy, and are some of the “key drivers” of the developing marketplace.
“My guess is, we are identifying more customers than ever, and looking to interact and intervene to ensure that the player has a safe and enjoyable experience," intervening more due to the level of data now accessible to operators and authorities. With this technology and data now accessible, creating a system that networks operators together to protect the vulnerable players has been a goal for the UK gambling industry.
“The solution to the issue is GamProtect. We believe we have delivered a solution that is simple."
However, Purdy did not shy away from alternative perspectives on the system, highlighting several criticisms placed towards it.
“The scheme has been live since last April,” said Purdy, with the above-mentioned signed-up operators holding millions of monthly users between them. “We’ve had over 5,000 players added to the scheme” he said.
“The scheme is not Orwellian,” said Purdy. "It not a scheme to limit gamblers in the UK, but to aid the most vulnerable."
The scheme is not mandatory to join, Purdy emphasised, though noted its benefits when players show “demonstrable” harm in relation to gambling.
