William Hill in new responsible gambling drive

Online and land gambling group William Hill plc has embarked on a major problem gambling drive dubbed “nobody is harmed by gambling,” a phrase which summarises the company’s objective of addressing key areas where responsible gambling principles can be more energetically applied.

Launching the initiative this week CEO Philip Bowcock acknowledged that his company, and the industry in general has fallen short of expectations as regards addressing the harm caused by gambling, but that the company is now approaching this as a major project.

The company’s director for strategy and investor relations, Lyndsay Wright has been given the additional responsibility of sustainability and will oversee and lead the “nobody is harmed by gambling” drive.

She has emphasised the importance to the group’s future of successfully dealing with responsible gambling principles, and has spoken about commitments to achieve this by the company, its management and employees. These include active campaigns, driving change in live sports advertising and training staff on problem gambling issues.

The company has focused on four main areas: how it designs and market products; how it identifies people at risk; how it supports those suffering harm; and how to involve all company staff in addressing the issue of problem gambling.

Wright revealed that the company has been planning and developing the project for the past nine months, motivated by a real desire to make a difference and a meaningful decline over recent years in how the public perceives gambling in general and the industry in particular.

“We want our customers to enjoy gambling and stay gambling for the long term, but that can only mean they can gamble what they can afford,” Wright opined this week.

“We feel we’ve fallen short of what is expected of us. That is clearly affecting the reputation of the industry and of William Hill, and in all of that our customers need to be kept away from harm.”

See a video on the initiative here

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