The Responsible Gambling Association’s plans for 2023:
“Focus on education, prevention and running a joint project with ONJN”
Ovidiu Iosif, the executive director of the Responsible Gambling Association, told us about the achievements and novelties that appeared in the activity of the association in the year that just ended: “In addition to the classic programs, we have support groups for gamblers and families, we have launched a pilot program to train employees on managing problem gamblers, and we have run special educational projects for pupils and students.” He claims that for 2023, the organization he leads has set out to put even more emphasis on new public education programs on responsible gambling and to develop and run a joint program with the National Gambling Office.
How was 2022 for the Responsible Gambling Association?
It was a year of consolidation and growth at the same time. Consolidation of existing programs (one year since the introduction of the Call Center for the Responsible Gambling program, employment of the fifth psychologist in the 24/7 Counseling program) and increase of new programs, as well as the number of sponsors. Thus, in addition to the sponsors from previous years, namely Fortuna/Casa Pariurilor, Superbet & Fundația Superbet, GameWorld, Unibet/Vlad Casino, Loteria Română, Admiral, Las Vegas, Maxbet, new sponsors came in 2022 who appreciated our programs: Betano, Winbet, Winboss, Get’s Bet, Wintoo Technologies, FrankCasino/Slotv.
What are the novelties that appeared in the activity of the Responsible Gambling Association in 2022?
First of all, we operationalized the Virtual Support Group program. We now have four support groups for players and one dedicated group for members. We also launched a pilot program to train operators’ employees in handling problem gamblers. Then, we also expanded into the prevention-education area, in the sense that we had a first session dedicated exclusively to students. We believe that students represent a vulnerable group because, even if they are adults, they are still in the process of maturing, they have a new environment, they are far from their family, they have increased material needs, so they can relatively easily come to the conclusion that gambling can represent success in professional life. Last but not least, we expanded the education side of high school and middle school students, by developing a concept centered on the idea of constructive association and social involvement. The seminar entitled “The right to association” is part of a pilot project and was initially dedicated to students from the educational units in District 2 of the Capital, from the 7th to the 12th grades, with the aim of to encourage them to associate in groups, to mobilize them for positive changes in society, to participate in civic activities and, basically, to stimulate them to defend their fundamental rights and freedoms.
Can you elaborate on the pilot program dedicated to training industry employees?
The project aimed to define an educational methodology, developed on theoretical and research bases, and finally, through practical calibration, for employees who work in gaming halls, in betting agencies or in call-centers (customer support), so that they recognize, prevent and manage certain behaviors of the players, which are pathological or which could exceed normality and which could become risky for them and for the other players. The course is focused on communication between employees and customers. Staff learn communication techniques based on empathy, displaying open non-verbal language. Learn to avoid communication that can lead to conflict. In order to understand the specific needs and the degree of knowledge of the subjects we used a questionnaire (quantitative component), which was completed by more than 1800 employees of our sponsors (completion of the questionnaire was voluntary and we were all impressed by the large number of respondents – a confirmation of the usefulness of the program) and three focus groups (qualitative component). The respondents operate in more than 55 cities, most of them working in Bucharest (994), Bacău, Brașov, Buzău, Constanța, Craiova, Galaţi, Giurgiu, Iași, Pitesti, Ploiești, Râmnicu Vâlcea and Timișoara. Content relevance was validated by focus group participants. Below is the data from the group formed by the employees of the gambling halls (the assessment is similar in the other two focus groups).
In January 2023, the actual courses will take place, with over 60 students from all the association’s sponsors, grouped into the three categories (gaming halls, betting agencies and customer-support), each course having two modules. The subject of the course was developed following the needs analysis and the degree of knowledge consists of six major chapters (specific psychoeducation, communication, player typology, conflict situations, stress management, responsible gambling).
What does the number of players who used the programs of the Responsible Gambling Association look like? Has it increased? Has it decreased?
Last year, 470 people signed up for the Responsible Gambling program – through which we offer five free psychotherapy sessions (a slight decrease compared to the previous year). The 24/7 Counseling program saw a 30% increase over 2021 (5100 versus 3558). Almost 80 members are enrolled in the 5 support groups, and the message of the Coached by Majorat program reached over 2000 students from 32 high schools in the 2021-2022 school year. In the first part of the current school year 2022-2023, we returned to the format of face-to-face high school meetings and organized sessions in 11 high schools, which were attended by more than 1300 students.
The Call Center introduced for the Responsible Gambling program has been inaugurated a year since its establishment and we have a database (respecting the GDPR rules) on the basis of which we can make certain well-argued specific decisions.
For example, out of 2053 calls made to Telverde (0800.800.099), since November 2021, only 511 (27%) were for therapy appointments. Most were calls that actually had to be made to operators (for bonuses, withdrawals, deposits, self-exclusions) coded internally as “Wrong number”.
Most requests for appointments come from Bucharest (222, i.e. 44%), followed by the cities where we have a local psychology office (Constanța, Cluj, Iași and Craiova) and counties where we want to expand the network of offices (Timișoara, Brașov).
How do you see your relationship with authority in this new year?
Last year we signed a collaboration protocol with ONJN, which represents a framework within which we aimed to identify concrete ways of collaboration, because we cannot support certain programs on a national scale only with the obtained sponsorships. I am confident that in 2023 we will be able to discuss materialized joint projects.
How did you feel interacting with market operators?
The fact that we reached 15 sponsors from the 3 we had two years ago speaks for itself. We have also adjusted the strategy of the association: if at the beginning we wanted to identify one project for each sponsor – otherwise we would not have been able to develop the initial projects, now we rather go for the concept of a “common basket” of projects to which all sponsors contribute. We arrived at this new formula because many projects have reached dimensions beyond the level of an individual sponsorship, but also because we want to position the association’s programs as a common platform, for the interest of the entire industry, as a place for collaboration and exchange of information between operators. This does not exclude the fact that a certain operator has a greater affinity for a certain program or wants to get involved in structuring (through a pilot) a new project.
What are your plans for 2023?
We want to operationalize the training program for industry employees and organize as many courses as possible, both in the capital and in big cities. We also want to materialize a joint project with ONJN and expand the area of education and prevention.
