With the findings of the Gambling Act review set to be revealed imminently, Head of Gaming for TruNarrative Adam Doyle explains why affordability checks should take prevalence when gambling companies try to navigate the new landscape.
A business that specialises in supplying operators with the means necessary to stay compliant with the needed regulations, TruNarrative shared that its vast majority of clients are now preparing strategies to meet the future affordability guidance.
“All the operators I know of are evaluating and evolving their responsible gambling strategy to meet affordability guidance,” said Doyle. “Investing in technology around affordability will allow operators to continue to deliver a safe and enjoyable experience for their players.”
Amid the recent metamorphosis that the UK gambling industry has found itself into, there are of course some doubts as to how affordability monitoring can be improved from its current state where there are still some creases long overdue to be ironed.
Doyle commented: “A few misconceptions I’ve come across include the thought that affordability assessments are an invasive process involving looking into a customer’s bank account or requiring the customer to surrender personal or intrusive information. Another, which runs counter the above, is that people can lie and say they have more of an income than they do.
“With regards to the implementation of affordability monitoring technology being a lengthy process, there are indeed multiple touch points needed to make an accurate assessment, starting from onboarding through to behavioural monitoring and withdrawal. However, there is technology out there that can pull these data points together in a meaningful way, without adding friction to the customer journey or requiring extensive dev resources.”
Such technology is currently provided by TruNarrative under the name of Dynamic Responsibility Gambling Score, continuously building a unique profile for each patron so that they can be flagged in real time if any behavioural changes occur.
Doyle added: “The TruNarrative Dynamic Responsibility Gambling Score is a metric that is unique to each player. It is derived from a number of different public and credit attributes. But this is also supported with risk-based events and thresholds that also look at different changes of behaviours of a player that might cause further investigation.
“Continuously monitoring a player is key to an affordability process as carrying out a single affordability check is only valid at that given point in time. Supporting this with continually monitoring players can allow you to see changes and flag when an additional check needs to be carried out. This ensures no player slips through the gaps.”
