Playtech: Industry must get “its house in order” for Gambling Act review

With the Gambling Act review later this year, Playtech are pushing for positive change

Renowned developers Playtech are once again back in the news for positive reasons as they are pushing for safer gambling standards in response to the Gambling Act under review later this year.

In the past week, Playtech was announced as the inaugural company to be awarded GamCare B2B Safer Gambling Accreditation. Playtech has been working to conduct its business in a sustainable manner to provide safer gambling with the Playtech Protect which ensures responsible gambling is built into the company platform and casinos.

“There is a much wider perspective focused on the industry now,” said Richard Bayliss, senior regulatory affairs and compliance manager at Playtech. “It’s not just the high-street names. The spotlight is now on the industry as a whole. While companies such as Playtech aren’t in the spotlight as much as the likes of Flutter and Bet365, it would be dangerous to say we will always be in the background.”

Playtech are famously known for a variety of online slots that include Age of the Gods, Kingdoms Rise, Frankie Dettori: Sporting Legends, DC Wonder Woman and The Dark Knight. They also own casinos themselves and are a huge part of the iGaming community.

Working with GamCare

Whilst Playtech are the first name to be added to the list of accredited supplies, GamCare are hopeful that others will follow suit. “We have done some basic communications to let people know we are out there,” explained Hayley Jane Smith, head of safer gambling standards at GamCare. “We are also working with BGC and there are other suppliers within that group.”

GamCare are aware that they must keep up with the pace of the changes within the iGaming sector and that the GamCare B2B Safer Gambling Accreditation is one of the first steps in transforming the whole sector into safer gambling standards.

“We need to be flexible,” stated Smith. “We need to know what safer looks like and we are evolving and changing to fit with that need.” Unfortunately, Smith recognises that this doesn’t mean a blanket scheme or template will fit for the rest of the industry as every supplier is different.

“If we just had standards that only fitted the top five, it would cut everybody else out,” explained Smith. “So we need to be as connected to the smaller operators as the big ones. We need to respond to operators that do things differently. Not everybody has 30 people in the compliance department.”

The industry needs to work together for a consensus

Although Playtech are pushing for the iGaming industry to collaborate together in order to agree to a standard that will work with the Gambling Act review, Bayliss has pointed out some issues that come with this.

“Uncertainty regarding any process never helps when it comes to delivering real-world solutions,” stated Bayliss. “We might implement things now which could be redundant post-Review. Meanwhile, the work being done by individual companies isn’t joined up and therefore any progress being made isn’t being done consistently.”

Suppliers should take the lead

Bayliss has suggested that the suppliers can be the ones to pioneer safe and responsible standards. “Suppliers can take the lead,” explained Bayliss. “They are designing the product and capturing the data and are so central to this process. This is where they can really make a difference.”

“This is the opportunity for the industry to get its house in order,” said Bayliss. “The collaboration piece will be a huge part of this. This is about thinking ahead of the review. It won’t stop criticism of the industry but efforts such as the B2B accreditation add up over time.”