The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is expanding rapidly, as demonstrated by a panel at the SBC Summit in Lisbon that discussed how AI can enhance player protection in the gambling industry.
In recent years, AI has seen significant growth, with new applications emerging frequently. The payments sector, in particular, has found AI invaluable for detecting and preventing fraud.
However, the gaming industry is also discovering unique applications for AI, with player protection being a key topic at one of the initial panels of this year’s SBC Summit.
Bernardo Chagas, a lecturer at the Lisbon School of Economics and Management, highlighted that gambling operators typically earn 80% of their revenue from just 20% of their customers.
This insight underscores the importance of protecting this crucial segment for long-term sustainability. However, similar to financial institutions, the gambling industry faces significant challenges in fully leveraging AI’s potential.
Peter Marcus, CEO of Macron Ltd and former Entain Operations Director, emphasised that AI’s effectiveness relies heavily on data. He pointed out that data collection, quality and sharing among operators are major obstacles.
Ketevan Potova, AI Ambassador and Data Scientist at CROCOBET, stressed the importance of high-quality data, using the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” to illustrate that AI’s impact depends on the quality of the data it processes.
Progress is being made in this area, particularly with the introduction of the EU AI Act in August. This legislation, overseen by the newly established European AI Office, aims to regulate AI use by evaluating general-purpose AI models, requesting information from providers and imposing sanctions when necessary.
The act came up as a topic of conversation, as Will Shuckburgh, Group CEO of eCogra, said: “Transparaceny combined with the EU AI Act will be a cornerstone of future initiatives in the gaming sector”.
While gambling, like payments, is already using AI to help combat fraud, player protection is becoming a primary focus. George Iosif, Head of Technology at Flutter, discussed how AI is already being utilised in this area.
He explained that in Australia, AI is used to predict deposit values based on customers’ spending habits. Deviations from these predictions trigger alerts for human review.
This example not only shows how AI is currently being applied but supports the broader consensus that AI’s effectiveness is enhanced through collaboration with human oversight – a viewpoint shared by the payments industry.
