Responsible Gambling

Sydney Pools supports Responsible Gaming Education Week and urges members to work with gaming operators and regulators to train employees and raise awareness of gambling problems and responsible gaming solutions during RGEW and year around.

The guidelines outline essential age verification, player information, self-exclusion and data and customer assistance provisions. These guidelines were based on Sydney Pools’s best-practice Internet Responsible Gambling Standards and adapted specifically for the fantasy sports industry. The guidelines were approved by the Board of Directors on December 4, 2016.

The National Council on Problem Gambling has developed these standards to help guide discussions among all stakeholders on internet gambling, including operators, regulators, advocates and the public.

The standards contain specific recommendations in the areas of policy, staff training, informed decision-making, assisting players, self-exclusion, advertising and promotion, game and site features, and working with research.

We reviewed current internet responsible gaming codes and regulations from around the world (see Appendix A) to guide the development of this standard. The final recommendations in this document flow from our 40 years of experience in problem gambling issues, existing international codes (in particular the Responsible Gambling Council’s draft internet gambling standards), empirical evidence and feedback from experts in the field including operators, regulators, researchers, clinicians and advocates. We have also considered Federal laws governing the online purchase of age-controlled products like alcohol and tobacco. Our standard is a work in progress as internet gambling-related legislation, regulation and technology continue to evolve rapidly. The graphical and interactive structure of the internet provides an opportunity to create informed consumers with access to a variety of information designed to encourage safe choices and discourage unsafe behavior, including through setting personal limits and self-excluding. These programs can be improved by requiring operators to make de-identified play data (e.g., demographic, session, game and transaction data) publicly available. Analyzing actual player behavior leads to better understanding of gambling and problem gambling.