GambleAware’s Plan for Solving Problem Gambling
Posted by Harry Kane on Thursday, November 24, 2016
In our last blog post, we let you know that UKGC’s Chief Executive Sarah Harrison has urged operators to show their customers they care about them. Now, as a continuation to the topic of increasing social responsibility, we’ll mention the newly published 5-year strategy by GambleAware.
Gaming is a wonderful pastime activity and that is one of the reasons why online casinos have been such a huge success. But with more and more temptations to try this or that game, to play for a jackpot or turn over a juicy bonus, setting a limit to what one’s betting and sticking to it is sometimes much harder than it seems. Similarly, despite the wide spread of self-exclusion programmes, the need to take a break is often underestimated. Until it’s too late.
Should the worst happen and you wake up one day to realise you have a gambling problem, there are helpful organisations, such as GamCare, Gamblers Anonymous, and GambleAware, that provide professional and timely support for people with addictive and compulsive gambling and their families.
GambleAware, formerly known as the Responsible Gambling Trust, is the leading charity in Britain that works to minimise the harm from gambling. As an independent organisation, it gets its funding from voluntary donations from companies in the gambling industry operating in the UK. The charity approaches the problem from all perspectives – they educate about the potential harm, carry out research, raise awareness by focusing on prevention and help those already afflicted.
They even have a couple of very helpful online quizzes to find out if you have a gambling problem or to calculate how much money you spend gambling. We urge you to go there and fill them out now, even if it’s just for the fun of it, because often realising you might have a problem is all it takes to start solving it.
Actually, GambleAware should be commended for their work as should all those casino operators and others in the industry that work with the charity by donating and displaying the organisation’s logo on their website. That definitely makes a difference in players’ lives and, as it turns out, more and more people will need that help in the future.
It is estimated that there are currently 250,000 gambling addicts and 470,000 more who are at risk of problem gambling in the UK, of which only 3 per cent reportedly get treatment with the help of GambleAware. Some of the most affected groups of people include the homeless and ex-military. The charity’s primary objective is protecting the vulnerable, as chairwoman Kate Lampard says.
In its attempt to further improve their work and impact as an organisation dedicated to minimising gambling-related harm, GambleAware has recently introduced a 5-year plan, which recommits to helping people in danger. The strategy will depend on raising double the annual donations, i.e. £10 million per year. That is why the charity urges industry members to participate more actively in donating and, thus, helping solve the wide-spread problem. They also plan on introducing a new Audit and Risk Committee, as well as allocating more money to the research budget. As a result of the strategy, GambleAware will, allegedly, triple their success rate.