## Focused Actions to Safeguard Participants – Enduring Gaming – iGB
Tipico’s sustainability report, published in September, emphasizes the enhancement in its connection with all consumers, along with the comparatively low percentage of problematic players.
While this may be viewed as a balance between assisting players facing difficulties and catering to casual consumers, Joachim Haeusler, Head of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Reporting, states Tipico has a distinct perspective on this division and that it might be time for lawmakers to catch up.
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Focused Actions to Safeguard Participants
Unlike the initial edition, which displayed a picture of football enthusiasts, Tipico’s second yearly Corporate Sustainability Report has a simple red cover.
Considering the operator’s estimated 50% market share in the German sports betting market, and the substantial changes the market is experiencing, this foundation alone might be sufficiently captivating. It offers insights into how the leading player in the German market manages social responsibility – a domain that has been extensively discussed during the formulation of regulations.
The 90-page document encompasses not only Tipico’s approach to problematic gambling but also its environmental impact, consumer contentment, and its efforts as an employer.
Despite this, for Joachim Haeusler, the leader of corporate responsibility and sustainability reporting at Tipico (pictured), the most significant accomplishment of the report is its very presence.
“I believe it’s a major accomplishment for a non-listed company like ours to begin non-financial reporting just a year ago, to have a sustainability report at all, and to make all this information available to the public in such detail,” he stated.
In his opinion, documenting accomplishments throughout the process, as well as potential drawbacks, should be a key component of any operator’s corporate social responsibility plan. This openness, he explained, allows the public to understand what works and what doesn’t.
“We have a significant advantage in this area because we began documenting our sustainability earlier than many other operators, and we view it as a crucial part of our strategy, not just a routine task.”
No room for compromise
Among the most notable figures listed in the report are overall customer satisfaction, which has grown year-on-year, and the percentage of revenue from problematic players, which remains below the German average.
At first glance, meeting the very different needs of a large customer base and the most vulnerable customers might seem like a balancing act where operators would seek a middle ground, but Haeusler rejects this idea.
He highlighted that businesses are constantly striving to find a middle ground, with providers offering items that appeal to the majority of participants who can wager without issues, while also providing protection for those who cannot. However, Hausler believes this “sweet spot” might not exist.
“In the end, there’s a range from situations where the client is entirely accountable, understanding what they’re doing, to scenarios where the provider has to take responsibility because the client can’t,” he stated.
He elaborated that for most patrons, Tipico’s approach centers around informed selection: making sure players have all the necessary details to make responsible choices. But he added that if that were Tipico’s sole guiding principle, it would be a failure.
“It’s crucial to address those less typical situations,” he said. “Based on everything we know about our patrons, we understand that we’ll inquire: ‘Is informed selection sufficient, should we share responsibility with the client, or should we go further and take complete responsibility?’
“This allows for a variety of approaches, some less intrusive, but sometimes you need to take a more intrusive approach, where you take control, impose limitations, and perhaps even exclude players.”
“Informed selection means giving players all the information you know as a provider to help them make the correct decisions. But then consider what addiction means, it means losing control.”
Its incredibly foolish to believe that informed decision-making alone can help those struggling with addiction to stop.
Nevertheless, employing diverse approaches for different demographics only works if you can easily distinguish the members of each group. In Hausler’s perspective, this was once a hurdle, but modern technology has altered the landscape.
“I believe that advancements in behavior monitoring and artificial intelligence make this feasible,” he stated. “You can relatively quickly determine a player’s path and whether they are more likely to voluntarily exclude themselves at some point in the future.”
“You can classify players and say ‘these players are content with just enough information, these players require us to share responsibility, and this group needs us to ask difficult questions and potentially restrict or exclude them.’ If you can achieve this kind of classification, you’re closer to a secure market than most current regulations.”
A Pivotal Shift
However, the timing of this document’s release, at a crucial turning point for the German online gambling market, is likely to receive the most attention.
Less than two weeks after the document was released, Tipico was revealed as one of the initial sports betting license holders under the third revised State Treaty on Gambling. Days later, the transition period for online casinos officially commenced.
In the interim phase, operators adhering to socially accountable regulations can evade legal action if they enact a €1 wager cap and a 5-second spin rate by December 15th.
Concurrently, during this transitional period, the promotion of slot machines and poker will also be prohibited. Simultaneously, the fourth interstate agreement, the “New German Gambling Regulation Ordinance” (GlüNeuRStV), will also restrict wagering in matches to the subsequent goal scorer and final outcome markets, while enacting a comprehensive deposit limit for the majority of players.
These appear to contradict Hausler’s notion that the majority of individuals make reasonable decisions, while a small percentage necessitate selective intervention.
Hausler stated that numerous regulations appear to lack sufficient evidence to support their implementation, which may be a consequence of the uncertainty surrounding years of effort to establish a new national gambling structure.
“Following years of developing a licensing system, they seem to be eager to finalize it,” he remarked. “If they must overlook the finer details of its implementation, they are entirely willing to do so, as more complex matters are more challenging to achieve. It’s understandable that they desire to expedite this process.”
Conversely, there’s a shortage of proof to back this up, as while numerous viewpoints can be collected, they might not have been thoroughly evaluated. Some ideas appear promising, but they require testing before widespread implementation, as there could be unintended consequences that actually hinder the regulatory objectives.
Haeusler stated that while it’s premature to determine the impact of the GlüNeuRStV regulations, they do present risks and could cause damage if they don’t function as intended.
“The issue is that if we directly incorporate everyone’s suggestions into regulations, we can only assess their effectiveness in real-world scenarios, and the price is using actual individuals. So if a measure turns out to be counterproductive, it will cause real harm,” he highlighted.
“Therefore, we shouldn’t do that; we should begin with measures that are known to be effective, and then, through small, limited assessment studies, experiment with all other promising but unproven concepts. Begin with what’s known to work and expand gradually.”
In this situation, how can operators persuade regulators to adopt a more careful policymaking strategy?
From Hausler’s viewpoint, the goal of sustainability reporting is to accomplish this by creating a system of openness and a favorable setting for evaluation. He believes that some operators are deficient in this area, permitting external influences to have a greater impact on policy development.
“The more you can encourage research, the more you can publicize your research findings, the more policymakers will have a solid empirical data foundation,” Hausler stated.
“To some degree, the industry is harming itself by not supporting evidence generation. Only when we actively support policymakers by creating an evidence base can we have a solid foundation when saying ‘hold on, until it’s tested.'”
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