What’s in a Name: You say RG, I say SG
Safer or responsible, that is the question. David Forrest, a professor of economics in the University of Liverpool Management School (UK), leans toward safer gambling because it is becoming the worldwide standard and suggests a more positive approach to problem gambling.
Responsible Gaming Education Month provides an annual opportunity for the American industry to raise awareness of the resources it offers to help prevent or mitigate gambling harm. Of course, it has its counterparts in other part of the world, such as in Europe, Australia and South Africa. But in all these places the equivalent long-standing annual event has changed its name. In Britain, Responsible Gambling Week is now Safer Gambling Week. Back in 2020, European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), the pan-European trade body, rebranded its Responsible Gambling Week with the label ‘Safer Gambling.” It was the same in South Africa, while in Australia the name change was starker: from Responsible Gambling Awareness Week to Gambling Harm Awareness Week. Abandonment of the term “responsible gambling” is more general. For example, it has been removed from the lexicon of Britain’s Gambling Commission.
America seems now to be becoming something of an outlier in persisting with the use of the term “responsible gaming/ gambling.” But what’s in a name? Why do authorities and many parts of the industry in other English-speaking countries now shy away from or even informally prohibit use of the term “responsible gaming/ gambling” (RG)?
Responsible Implications
Critics of the term RG suggest that it carries an implication that those who experience harm are themselves to blame, because their behavior has been “irresponsible” and that its use therefore promotes shame and stigmatization, which may deter those in trouble from seeking help. It’s a fair if unproven point.
But it must also be acknowledged that changes in language and terminology are part of the armory of those seeking ever stronger restrictions on gambling. Use of “safer gambling” (SG) can be seen as introducing a starting point that gambling is an inherently unsafe activity which has to be restricted. It takes debate away from the central idea of RG, that the RG toolkit can help players to protect themselves.
SG may have displaced RG as usage among regulators and the industry in many countries, but activists push for further modification of language. A group of academics in Great Britain has issued a style guide called Words Matter which begins with the apt comment that “Language has the power to shape how we see the world” and goes on to propose alternatives to commonly used language in gambling studies.
In fact, even the new term SG is now frowned on and terms such as “harmful gambling products” should be worked into the narrative instead. “Problem gambler” is also represented as an inappropriate term since it stigmatizes the individual and “a person experiencing harm from gambling” was recommended as an alternative.
Other “tips” in the document perhaps betray an agenda. Writers should not adopt “The framing that some people are more vulnerable to gambling harms due to their individual characteristics” but rather say that “everyone is at risk of gambling harm.” They should also avoid “The framing that many people enjoy gambling recreationally but only a minority are harmed” and instead assert that “Everyone is at risk of gambling harms.”
Stigma Solution
While recognizing that stigmatizing individuals will be inappropriate in many settings, I would argue that research has identified that vulnerability of harm is greatest among some groups, such as the young or the many with comorbidities, and that accepting this point is essential if we are to identify those most likely to benefit from targeted intervention.
Similarly, a refusal to accept that many people enjoy gambling recreationally is to propose that only costs associated with gambling should count when policy is debated and the benefits in terms of enjoyment to a large part of the population ignored. That is hardly the conventional approach to policy evaluation, where it is customary to weigh costs against benefits.
That said, it is important to take seriously that gambling harm for some individuals can be life-crippling, even life-ending. If the industry is not seen to be taking gambling harm seriously, it risks losing its social contract to operate, i.e. of losing the public’s support for the current easy availability of legal gambling. For long periods in America and most of the world, the norm has been prohibition and so reversion in the direction of prohibition is ever a threat to the industry.
Responsible Intentions
RG was a term which emerged in the 1990s. Whatever the original intentions of those behind introducing the term, the critics are probably correct that the industry often understood (or chose to believe) that its role in RG was limited to enabling its customers to gamble responsibly. It could do so by providing self-help tools such as self-exclusion and deposit limits. Largely, the legal industry provides these even if regulators sometimes have to intervene to enforce them rigorously.
But pragmatically, this is unlikely to be enough. Mere availability of self-help tools will not help all those at risk. Indeed, evidence from Norway shows that, although those at high risk were more likely than others to use one or more RG/ SG tools, still only a low proportion did so. It follows that, for harm to be addressed adequately, more parts of the industry must accept that responsibility lies with suppliers as well as with consumers of the product.
I have no particular sense of unease if America still refers to RG rather than SG awareness if it is understood that providers as well as users of gambling facilities are meant to take responsibility for prevention and mitigation of harm. For providers, this means such as restraint in aspects of product design and marketing, applying technology rigorously to identify potential harm at an early stage, and testing in a scientific way the effectiveness of its interventions.
Declaration of War
There is a “war on gambling” and failure of the industry to act “responsibly” is likely eventually to lead to greater restrictions on the freedom to gamble. But, in Europe at least, the frequency with which regulatory sanctions for “bad behavior” are reported suggests that some parts of the industry find it worthwhile to pay large fines rather than behave responsibly.
There may be a prisoners’ dilemma here. It is in the interests of the industry as a whole that everyone behaves responsibly because, otherwise, it will be an easy target for prohibitionists. But there appears to be insufficient incentive for individual suppliers to forego short-run profit because their individual behavior on its own is unlikely to count for much when the industry’s “responsibility” is assessed in the minds of politicians and the public in the longer-run.
Resolution of such a dilemma often involves the use of an enforcer (a regulator) to protect the industry from itself but influence from anti-gambling activists may make for changes which are disproportionate and damaging. Industry voices should call for rigorous empirical evidence to justify restrictions and argue, with use of emerging evidence, that, for most of its customers, participation in gambling is associated with healthy wellbeing. Whether the industry can sort itself out instead, without external enforcement, may depend on strong leadership from the largest operators, following good-practice policies and procedures and demonstrating from independent research that what they are doing works.
David Forrest is Professor of Economics in the University of Liverpool Management School (UK) and Honorary Professor, Macau Polytechnic University. He has been an active researcher in the gambling field for 25 years and has worked closely with regulators and the industry.
At Liverpool, he is part of a team of six researchers focused on investigating gambling issues, with a strong emphasis on quantitative analysis.
