Over the past several years, there has been significant growth in the United Kingdom’s gambling sector. While this has been accompanied by a lot of benefits, there have been quite a few problems that have cropped and none is quite as significant as gambling-related harm.

In 2017, the members of the country’s gambling industry joined forces in a bid to work out ways of solving this problem and so the Responsible Gambling Week was born. Every year since then, a whole week has been dedicated specifically to responsible gambling initiatives including education, open discussions as well as campaigns.

Now, it goes without saying that responsible gambling should be a continuous process with no breaks to ensure that gamblers are always protected. However, by setting apart a given window of time every year, the stakeholders of the gambling industry are essentially coming together and consolidating as well as rejuvenating efforts to promote responsible gaming. During the week, the main focus is usually to promote information on: how to gamble more safely; the tools that are available to help people gamble safely all year round; sources of more advice and support.

The week-long event will be making a return this year from November 19 to November 25. It will also be going with a totally new name, that is, Safer Gambling Week. Their goals remain largely the same with the headline for this year’s event being “Let’s Talk About Safer Gambling.”

A Collective Effort

Considering how widespread online gambling is in the United Kingdom, the promotion of safer gambling naturally has to be a collective effort if it is to succeed. The gaming operators, the gambling regulators, responsible gambling campaigners, and even the gamblers themselves will need to get involved in different capacities so as to advance the agenda.

One of the organizations that have been very serious about promoting responsible gambling is the Betting and Gaming Council.

“This awareness campaign is now in its fourth year and it has achieved a significant increase in engagement at all levels on the tools and support available to customers. We achieved over 25 million impressions on social media in 2019, setting a new benchmark for the campaign, which demonstrates the breadth and reach of the campaign.”

BGC chief executive Michael Dugher.

In addition to inking some partnerships with other stakeholders in the gaming industry, the council has even been working tirelessly to ensure operators do not take advantage of gamblers during the lockdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Some of the ways it has been pursuing this are the regulation of advertisements as well as calls for spending limits on online gambling sites.