Gambling harm consultancy EPIC Risk Management announced this year’s Safer Gambling Week would become the platform to promote its work throughout the year.
Lived Experience to Help ‘Take Problem out of Gambling’
From October 17 to October 23, EPIC Risk Management will deliver education sessions, gambling harm awareness seminars, lived experience presentations, round-table discussions, and webinars around the world to highlight the importance of responsible gambling during the 2022 Safer Gambling Week.
Commenting on the announcement, Dan Spencer, director of safer gambling at EPIC Risk Management, outlined the importance for institutions to “always keep safer gambling and player protection at the forefront of their thinking,” noting that “problem gambling can manifest itself in any number of ways” each of which with an “adverse effect on performance,” possibly damaging reputations or implying regulatory compliance breaches.
“Most organizations will also feel that they have a duty of care, welfare and conscience to protect employees and customers as a matter of public health, taking into account the implications on wider society,” he added, stressing that “any of these reasons in isolation, or a combination of several such factors, are a valid cause for companies to reach out and work with us.”
At the heart of every education session or seminar EPIC would deliver would be lived experience and its motto ‘learning from lived experience, we aim to take the problem out of gambling,’ seeking to provide knowledge, understanding and deep insight into the effects of gambling harm from those who have suffered from it.
These sessions will be targeted at sectors such as criminal justice, education, military, sport, financial services, construction, and the gambling industry itself, which are considered to be at high risk as statistics show there is a higher probability of gambling harm to occur.
Busy 2022 Safer Gambling Week
EPIC will engage with gambling harm sessions and seminars across three continents, Europe, North America and Australia, as well as online, where it will participate in a webinar titled ‘Harnessing data and technology to make online gambling safer,’ and a free online webinar to deliver lived experience to the public.
In the UK, EPIC will deliver education sessions at a mix of eight state and private secondary schools, seeking to educate children at the age of 14+ about the adverse effects of gambling, as well as lived experience presentations to two English professional sports clubs.
In the US, the consultancy will deliver multiple gambling harm awareness seminars across three NCAA college campuses to raise gambling harm awareness among student-athletes, while in Australia, it will host a round-table discussion with Australian sports institutions to help them identify areas of gambling harm within their organizations.
In addition, EPIC will deliver speeches at a mix of conferences and seminars on safer gambling and player protection in London, Amsterdam and Melbourne, and will deliver harm identification and prevention sessions for customer-facing staff at industry operators.