‘We don’t want to take one penny from people who cannot afford to spend it,’ explained Shay Segev, chief executive officer at the newly-rebranded Entain, as he discussed the company’s long-term sustainability goal.
On Wednesday night, the FTSE100 firm won the Social Responsibility Sportsbook of the Year award at the SBC Awards, where it announced the launch of its ARC programme.
Segev disclosed that the ARC programme utilises proprietary-built safer gambling technologies to enhance player protection through additional checks along with improving monitoring and interventions.
Speaking to SBC’s managing director Andrew McCarron, the Entain CEO explained that as part of the company’s ARC sustainability pillars, responsibility was a core focus.
He noted: “We are in a unique position that we’re one of the only operators who control the full technology, we provide the full technology and all the touch points that we have between ourselves and our customers.
“Clearly we can take this thing into a better customer experience in terms of providing better content to our customers. But we also have the opportunity to use this data to make a more safer journey as well, and this is exactly what ARC is all about; advance responsibility and care.
“What we’re trying to do is to develop algorithms that will tell us the probability of players who have harmful behaviour on our products. If we have that, we can intervene and engage with that player to make sure they’re setting the right controls – and in extreme cases, we set the controls for them as well.
“We got two professors onboard to help us on this. People who have quite a lot of experience… This is a clear priority for us. The reason for that is because we believe that we need to build this industry to become a long term, sustainable industry.”
Earlier this week, Entain announced its rebrand after being backed by 99.9 per cent of company shareholders who signed off on the ‘new corporate charter’ which proposes a series of new, long-term, sustainability objectives.
When asked how Entain’s ARC programme can balance its social responsibility with its global growth strategy, Segev noted that it’s very simple: “I don’t see these things as a conflict at all. For us, building value for our shareholders and building this industry for the long-term doesn’t mean we have to maximise every penny in the short-term, it means we need to maximise our potential in the long term.
“For us, it is a priority to be able to identify problem gamblers and protect them from harm. One thing we have been very clear on is introducing a bold strategy for all of our employees and stakeholders.
“We don’t want to take one penny from people who cannot afford to spend it, because this is not the right thing to do and it’s definitely something that, as an industry, we should not do.
“We should do everything we can to prevent that and I believe this harmful stance is also harmful to our business as well. This is why these two are quite aligned.
“For us, by providing a more fun and safer product and environment, it can enable us to continue to grow our business even further.”
Earlier today, Martin Lycka – Entertain’s senior vice president of US regulatory affairs and responsible gambling – spoke to SBC Noticias about the fast-moving developments for the betting group within the Colombian market.
Lycka announced that the company expects to launch its Bwin sportsbook property for the Colombian regulated market next month after securing its online gambling licence from the federal regulator Coljuegos.
