Safer Gambling Week is a cross-country initiative to promote safer gambling in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
This year's Safer Gambling Week runs November 13 until 19, and will see the whole industry coming together in a combined effort to further promote and raise awareness of safer gambling, feature the tools available for customers to stay in control, and provide advice and support for those who need it.
The "Safer Gambling Week" campaign is organized by the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), BACTA, the Lotteries Council and the Bingo Association. Now on its sixth year, this year's event will see once again a bunch of safer gambling messages both online and in land-based venues, to spark a nationwide conversation about betting responsibly.
In last year's successful campaign held in October, analysis revealed that around 200,000 accounts have set deposit limits during the month, a 12.5% rise compared to the same month the previous year.
Around 61% of players who set deposit limits, did so for the very first time.
The number of players actively using reality checks - on-screen notifications that track who long they are playing - has risen by an astonishing 300%.
Safer Gambling Week also broke previous social media records, generating almost 30 million impressions on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, a 21% increase on 2021.
Last year, the event was supported by a big number of cross-party senior MPs and peers, including then DCMS minister responsible for betting and gaming Damian Collins MP, and many shadow ministers such as Shadow DCMS Secretary Lucy Powell MP. The event was also supported by DCMS and the Gambling Commission.
All year round, regulated gaming and betting operators already work tirelessly to promote safer gambling, including by encouraging time-outs and deposit limits, as well as guiding customers to a range of self-exclusion options that exist.
Safer Gambling Week gives the opportunity to go even further by encouraging organizations and businesses to initiate a conversation, not only with customers and staff, but also with their family and friends. The annual campaign provides a consistent voice to raise safer gambling awareness, highlighting support and the tools available throughout the year.
Chief Executive of the BGC Michael Dugher said:
"Safer Gambling Week is now an established annual event in the industry's calendar, doing vital work promoting the safer gambling tools only available in the regulated betting and gaming sector and signposting help to those that need it.
All the recent data confirms what we already knew, that rates of problem gambling are consistently low, which is brilliant news, but Safer Gambling Week is an example of the regulated industry's determination to keep raising standards. A recent Gambling Commission report showed that the problem gambling rate in the year to March 2023 was 0.3 per cent.
BGC members demonstrate their commitment to safer gambling every day through initiatives such as the whistle-to-whistle ban on TV betting commercials during live sport pre-watershed and offering a wide range of tools for use by punters.
It's great to see that year-round commitment promoted and publicized so successfully in a single week - I know Safer Gambling Week 2023 will be another huge success."
The tools to promote safer gambling do not exist in the growing unsafe, unregulated gambling black market. In recent years, the number of people betting on these sites have doubled and the amounts staked is in the billions.
An estimate 22.5 million UK adults enjoy placing a bet each month, whether it's purchasing a lottery ticket, having a bingo game, visiting a casino, playing online or wagering on horseracing, football and other sports.
The regulated betting and gaming industry generates £4.2bn in tax, contributes £7.1bn to the economy, and supports 110,000 jobs.
For more information on Safer Gambling Week, visit their official website safergamblinguk.org.
Source:
https://bettingandgamingcouncil.com/news/safer-gambling-week-2023
https://safergamblinguk.org/
