This might not come as a surprise—but in addition to working in the gambling industry, I enjoy gambling. My two activities of choice are in-person blackjack and mobile sports betting. In one of those activities, I must bring cash with me. I have no easy way to track my overall spending, and unless I were to keep meticulous notes, I have no idea how much I’ve won or lost overall. In the other, I can easily deposit funds using a variety of methods, track my overall play and spending, and—if I so wish—set limits on my deposits, spending, or even time spent gambling. Why are these two experiences so different from a responsible gaming perspective?
Certainly, one is the regulatory environment for mobile sports betting, as well as online casino, which mandates the use of technology to provide those responsible gaming tools. Regulators have required that operators put in place these readily available digital tools to enable patrons to establish material responsible gaming safeguards, which many patrons choose to do to ensure they can wager responsibly.
The other is the prevalence of digital payments options in the mobile landscape. We all use online banking in some way, shape, or form, partly because of its ability to better track our spending. Using my Bank of America app, I can visualize all my spending and modify it if I need to budget better. My favorite mobile sports betting app works the same way. Almost instantly, I can see how much I’ve wagered, how much I’ve lost or won, and from there, be able to set deposit, time, or spending limits, if appropriate.
Digital payments are the easiest way brick-and-mortar casinos can enable those enhanced responsible gaming tools. Today, when a brick-and-mortar casino patron visits a casino cage or players club, they see “When the Fun Stops” brochures and information about casino self-exclusion. Those measures create a stigma around responsible gaming that makes it more difficult for players to want to shift their behavior.
Responsible gaming is ultimately about information. How do you provide your patron with details about their experience and overall spending to enable them to make good choices about their play?
Digital payments have the ability to revolutionize responsible gaming and remove many of the stigmas caused by the conflation between responsible gaming and problem gambling. We want to enable our customers to spend responsibly and enjoy our products safely. By enabling these new digital payment options for our guests, we can provide them with more information about their visits to our properties to ensure they continue to gamble responsibly.
And we can also find measures of harm to indicate when patrons might have a problem with their gambling, which could result in pushing them notifications about responsible gaming tools, their overall spend, or additional measures where appropriate. But the only way these changes take place is by leveraging digital payments and the solutions they provide for our patrons today.
