Entain has launched its UK affordability model, which has been in development for 18 months, as the company strives to continue “raising the bar with personalised player protection”.
The betting and gaming group is aiming to use its ‘Advanced Responsibility and Care’ technology-led player protection initiative to identify UK customers at greatest risk of potential financial problems, and proactively implement staking limits and tighter affordability checks as deemed necessary.
Entain adds that it is continuing to develop ARC, with further models and behavioural indicators still in development to include variable stake limits depending on the risk level of the customer.
The company said tests have shown that interactions with targeted customers, to use betting and gaming tools, reduce their staking and depositing limits by around 55 per cent.
With affordability checks now live across its 14 UK brands, ARC is due to be fully live in the UK market across all Entain entities from this summer. Customised iterations for specific international regions, and different cultural norms, are anticipated later in the year.
“We have been working on player affordability concepts for the past 18 months as part of our ARC affordability programme. This aims to identify relevant limits at the right time to protect customers whom our technology has identified as being vulnerable, or particularly at risk” explained Peter Marcus, group operations director at Entain, who is leading the ARC initiative.
“For those we believe are at most financial risk, we set limits which only increase if those individuals share certain information about their affordability. This means the vast majority of customers who show no indications of financial risk can still bet with us freely.
“We think this is an important step in preserving personal freedoms, and will also greatly benefit the horse-racing industry, which is concerned about the impact of blanket measures on its future viability.”
Entain’s affordability framework under ARC uses open source and commercially available data on customers combined with behavioural indicators.
Its data scientists, says the group, have built models for customers demonstrating varying levels of potential financial risk, which are now live on affordability across the company’s UK brands.
“We firmly believe that a more personalised, individual approach to player protection is the way forward which is why, for the most vulnerable customers, we have taken action as soon as we can,” said Jette Nygaard-Andersen, chief executive of Entain.
“We are deeply committed to giving every customer the best experiences and protection we can, tailored to their particular needs.”
