程阳：2015年11月美国达拉斯，责任彩票无共识

 

Moving Forward with Responsible Gambling

 

Showcasing the importance of responsible gambling programs to lotteries, enthusiastic participants attended a special seminar held in Dallas before the NASPL annual conference and trade show.

 

Leaders in the responsible gambling field met in October in Dallas at a joint seminar held by the World Lottery Association (WLA) and the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL). Led throughout by Don Feeney, Research and Planning Director for the Minnesota Lottery, they discussed some of the latest tools and techniques being used to help lotteries fine-tune their responsible gambling (RG) programs and more fully develop their full corporate social responsibility programs.

 

Dr. Alex Blaszczynski, a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Australia’s University of Sydney, opened the event with a presentation on problem gambling research. He suggested that gambling prevalence rates, historically based on the entire population, should instead be based on only those who gamble. In addition, research focus should move from prevalence studies to harm studies.

 

He also said that the research community needs to include lotteries in more RG studies, especially long-term studies, since much of the existing data is not applicable to lotteries or the way lotteries work. For example, self-exclusion and limits are hard to implement in an industry that uses thousands of retailers to sell an anonymous product. So really, lotteries are relying on informed choice and vigilance.

 

“Informed choice” was a phrase often echoed by speakers throughout the seminar – helping players determine what it means to be a responsible gambler and helping them set limits on time and money spent. The British Columbia Lottery Corp. (BCLC) has taken player education to a new level with its GameSense program, which is all about promoting safe play and peace of mind while staying fun.

 

The Business Case

 

Paul Smith, who developed GameSense when he was with BCLC and most recently founded SustainableGAMING, addressed the business case for responsible gambling. The reasons why many gambling operators don’t embrace RG?

 

• It’s not always a regulatory requirement.

• The cost in time, money and people.

• The money is needed elsewhere.

• It might hurt sales.

• The belief that problem gambling is not a lottery issue.

• The leadership is not vested in long-term sustainability.

• Lack of internal expertise.

• Insufficient evidence that responsible gambling programs work.

 

 With all of those excuses, why should companies invest in responsible gambling? It is good for business, explained Smith, and it’s the right thing to do. “Sustainability and success in business requires long-term thinking.” It is also important for reputation management, he added. The public wants to know where the money goes, if the games are fair, and what is being done about problem gambling. In addition, employees and retailers alike are more satisfied when given tools to implement social responsibility. If lotteries hope to attract younger employees, they have to be committed to corporate social responsibility, since the younger generation is much more attuned to the social good.

 

And as lotteries struggle to find new games and distribution methods to attract younger players, they draw more attention from governments and other stakeholders. “You need to have responsible gambling programs in place before you make these changes,” Smith said. “You need stakeholder alignment.”

 

One change many lotteries around the world have made, and many more hope to make with that stakeholder alignment, is the addition of online sales options. Despite what some critics may say, online gambling is actually safest for players, noted BCLC’s Director of Social Responsibility Kahlil Philander. In fact, many RG tools are available online but not at retail. He summarized recent studies that provide evidence that participation in internet gambling does not create increases in problem gambling. Some of the underlying factors include:

 

• Online gambling in homes actually gives players more options if they get tired of gambling, compared to the casino environment where everything is geared towards keeping the player gambling.

 

• Help resources are available online almost immediately.

 

• Online gambling is usually low denomination play.

 

• There’s an “adaptation effect” – in the short term, an increase in gambling availability increases the numbers of people gambling, but in the long run as people adapt that availability, it goes back down.

 

The Importance of Training

 

Several sessions at the seminar discussed training programs for retailers and lottery employees, with representatives from several lotteries around the world describing their programs. Italy’s Lottomatica, with some 86,000 retailers, has no choice but to do responsible gambling training online rather than in person, using PCs, tablets and phones – the latter are important because many retail outlets don’t have computers. Focus groups are used to determine key training areas and topics.

 

With a much smaller network – around 2,350 retailers – Sweden’s Svenska Spel requires that every retail employee selling its products be certified after a training program which provides education and information. A web-based retailer education program on responsible gambling and security was launched in April 2014. Currently some 20,000 employees are certified after completing the training.

 

The Connecticut Lottery’s expansive retailer training program includes a significant portion involving responsible gambling. One of the first lotteries to produce a video dedicated to the topic, it found that a short video featuring just one topic works the best, rather than trying to put more concepts in a longer video. Connecticut created a superhero to be the voice of its RG video focusing on the gambler’s help line – “Mighty Bet,” which encourages retailers to become “super responsible.”

 

The employee training program used by La Francaise des Jeux includes three levels of training, depending on the types of employees. All of LFDJ’s employees receive three hours of basic RG training. A broader training regimen is given to a smaller group of employees who have contact with players or are designing games. A very select group of employees receive more detailed training that helps them deal with extreme situations involving customers on the edge.

 

Morocco’s La Marocaine des Jeux et des Sports was the first lottery in Africa to attain WLA RG certification, and provides general training for all its employees. More detailed training is given to marketing and customer service employees, and there is an emphasis on continual evaluation of all existing training programs.

 

Moderator Marlene Warner, a noted expert in the RG field who has spearheaded employee training programs in the lottery industry, emphasized the importance of providing training to every lottery employee. She developed a series of retailer training videos for the North Carolina Education Lottery, and those videos are now an instrumental part of a new responsible gambling toolkit provided to all NASPL members.

 

One advantage of employee training is that employees who feel empowered to help players also feel better about their own jobs, so Warner added that it’s important to monitor employees’ satisfaction levels and know how that changes over time with responsible gaming training.

 

Game Design Influences

 

Beyond training for employees and retailers, responsible gambling is increasingly being incorporated into the game design process.

 

Spain’s ONCE created a game evaluation tool in 2010, used by its marketing department to assess every game during the development process. The Excel-based format considers 16 elements in four categories: game mechanics; environmental factors, such as privacy issues and credit options; distribution factors, affecting the availability of the games; and publicity and advertising factors.

 

The tool generates a numerical score from1.0 to 3.0 that defines the risk factor of a game. Less than 2.0, it’s considered a low-risk game. With a score from 2.0 to 2.3, the game has moderate risk but can be offered with careful advertising. Anything over 2.3 is a high-risk game that likely won’t be offered, unless the lottery can offer it more safely than a competitor.

 

In the U.K., Camelot uses various tools to assess games it offers as operator of the U.K. National Lottery. Camelot’s game development process begins at the concept stage, moves to risk assessment, and then ultimately to market if the game is acceptable. Many games don’t make it past the concept stage. In the risk assessment stage, Camelot uses its own GAM-GaRD tool, the independently-developed ASTERiG, and Game Design Protocol (GDP), which assesses the appeal of a game to specific audiences, such as children, problem gamblers and low income consumers.

 

In any environment, using any tools, all the presenters emphasized the importance of continuing to monitor games as they enter the market to ensure that they have the expected performance related to problem gambling risk.

 

RG Best Practices

 

The seminar closed with an overview of best practices by Dr. Jon Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of the Responsible Gambling Council.

 

He explained that since lottery retailers don’t consider themselves “gaming providers,” it’s harder to get retailers on board. With thousands of outlets, it’s impossible to build a true RG culture, so lotteries need to focus on retailer training that provides motivating tools, offers clear protocols in any situation and identifies ways to respond to myths and perceptions. Above all, teach retailers how to deal with behaviors without labeling people.

 

Lotteries actually have a unique opportunity to reach problem gamblers. Kelly cited a 2005 study that said 80 percent of people with severe gambling problems buy lottery tickets. This doesn’t mean that lottery has necessarily caused their gambling problem, just that lottery is among the games they play. That means lotteries can actually reach these players and help them with informed decision making.

 

In order to reach players, however, the message is critical. Gambling operators need effective communication, their messages need to be well-crafted and interesting enough to get attention, and perhaps most importantly, there should be no sense of judgment or morality.

 

Kelly advised lotteries to be careful about promising things that they can’t deliver. Winner awareness is one area that definitely needs more exploration, he said. While an important component of lottery advertising and promotion, lotteries need to be very careful of their message as they design campaigns for winner awareness.

 

To help create effective messages, lotteries should use some of the same tools they use for products. Keith Whyte, Executive Director of the National Council on Problem Gambling, noted that lotteries spend fortunes on focus groups and testing on the product side, but virtually nothing on testing responsible gambling messages or researching what players want with respect to those messages.

 

As the seminar concluded, everyone agreed that with more and more lotteries implementing sound RG and CSR programs, they now need to ensure that those programs are continually evaluated and measured so the industry can move forward.

 

============

 

NASPL and NCPG Launch Responsible Gambling Framework and Verification Program

 

In October, NASPL announced a new responsible gambling framework and independent verification program for its member lotteries. Partnering with NASPL in this important effort is the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG).

 

“The recognition of problem gambling issues within the lottery industry over the course of the past decade has been nothing short of remarkable,” said NASPL Executive Director David Gale. “Whereas at one point it was considered a taboo subject that shouldn’t be openly addressed, we have evolved now to launch what I consider a crowning achievement of NASPL.”

 

Lotteries have certainly taken the lead in responsible gambling programs in the United States. “For the first time a segment of the U.S. gambling industry has adopted a responsible gaming framework and independent verification process,” said NCPG Executive Director Keith Whyte. “We congratulate NASPL members for their recognition of problem gambling and their embrace of responsible gaming.”

 

The new program has three levels of verification. The first level (“Plan”) is for lotteries that have not yet developed a robust responsible gambling program – by submitting an application at this level, lotteries will have experts in the field critique their plans and help them move towards the next level. The second level (“Implementation”) assesses current programs and results for lotteries with more advanced responsible gambling programs. The third level (“Sustaining”) will review Implementation verification every three years to ensure ongoing performance.

 

An independent assessment panel, under the guidance of the NCPG, will review all applications for verification. The eight areas of assessment include research, employee training, retailer training, player education, new/existing product oversight, budget, advertising and engagement/awareness.

 

Four American lotteries were selected by the NCPG in early November to participate in a pilot program. This limited number will ensure that the procedures and infrastructure are in place for the program to be successful, explained Alice Garland, chair of the NASPL Responsible Gambling Committee and Executive Director of the North Carolina Education Lottery. “Once we make sure everything is in place to move forward, all U.S. lotteries will be invited to participate,” said Garland.