Delivering its annual accounts for 2019, UK-based operator bet365 has lifted the lid on key measures it has introduced to boost player protection and safer gambling practices.
In the company’s Strategic Report, the operator stressed an “unwavering commitment to deliver industry leading approaches to player protection”.
Bet365‘s early-risk detection system, ‘EROS’, monitors customer activity for “behaviours that may indicate a potential concern”. In the last year, the operator has been exploring the use of machine-learning techniques to develop EROS further, with a view to significantly improving the detection of at-risk behaviours. The company said a preliminary model has been developed “which will shortly be put through its initial phase of testing”.
Additionally, with partner Focal Research – a social research company based in Canada – bet365 is developing a practical tool using player data to identify high-risk gambling patterns among #customers. The group is also using the same data to inform how it communicates with high-risk customers, it said.
Bet365 reports that it is also improving how it carries out more direct forms of customer interaction, in partnership with GamCare, developing the training provided to specialist customer-facing staff. This includes a specific focus on core skills, such as motivational strategies for encouraging customers to take positive steps in controlling their gambling.
The operators said the improvements were driven in part by a desire to give customers “far greater flexibility in the setting of gambling management tools”, in addition to providing customers with more behavioural data, to inform player decisions about their gambling.
This led to the development of a new tool that enables customers to block access to gambling on specific days or times, with the option to have that repeat every week.
The Stoke-based group also highlighted the 2019 launch of a new customer-facing responsible gambling website, across all languages and jurisdictions, where customers can access information on how to stay in control of their gambling and find details of all the tools available to help them do so.
In summary, bet365 said: “The group recognises that player protection is not a competitive exercise. To that end, the impact of its systems and the positive results it identifies through internal research are routinely shared across the industry.
“In the coming year, the group will continue in this vein, and is willing to work with other operators and regulators on raising standards across the industry, in a shared endeavour to make gambling safe for all.”
