As Responsible Gaming Education Month (RGEM) rounds to a close in the US, Dr Michael Auer, Managing Director of OpenBet’s Neccton, and Joann Pierce, Chief Commercial Officer at Games Global USA, share their insights into the biggest responsible gaming and player protection challenges currently facing operators in America’s regulated states and the tools needed to secure a sustainable and safer future for the industry.

What are the key player protection challenges faced by operators and suppliers in 2024?

MA: Evolving global gaming markets, such as the US and LatAm, demand operators have in-depth insights into their players’ behaviour. With high player volumes, this can pose a challenge for those without up-to-date technology. Operators have the responsibility to take proactive steps to protect players from harm, but in new jurisdictions such as Brazil and Peru, it is vital for them to win the trust of their customers and promote responsible gaming from the off. In a recent Hibou survey, of 2,839 Brazilian respondents, 16% reported experiencing financial issues due to their gambling, which should make combating harm and effectively tracking their player base a core priority for operators.

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For suppliers, developing responsible gaming tools that meet the needs of the market is essential. By achieving this, they can take positive steps towards building a sustainable and safer industry. Of course, to be confident their tools are up-to-date and will have a notable impact on reducing potentially harmful behaviours, they must be informed by the richest data available from real players. Peer reviewed research that uses datasets from operators themselves is the best way to do this.

JP: There are very different player protection challenges for operators who are directly accepting wagers from the player vs suppliers who are typically offering their products to the operators – to offer to the player. The main difference is complete oversight of a player’s activity vs partial. An operator can join the dots and see all of a player’s conduct across every wager and vertical, whereas a supplier will typically only see the fraction of that play which occurs on their products. Working together, suppliers can help operators with contextualising to help fulfil their duty of care.

Suppliers will typically operate across numerous states, so where state-by-state, game design and safer gambling requirement variations exist it can pose a challenge. In this regard, continued moves towards harmonisation across states would be beneficial for all stakeholders.

What tools and resources can be provided to help operators implement effective responsible gaming measures?

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JP: We have mentioned that harmonised standards assist players, operators, suppliers and regulators. However, measures should be evidence based to ensure that we are putting in place solutions which we know are going to be effective and which help all parties target their resources to maximum effect. From an operator’s perspective, access to any player data that can help build an accurate picture undoubtedly helps in delivering that duty of care. Following the lead of other countries, the UK is seeing the implementation of centralised industry-led exclusion registration via the GamProtect system.

Results from the pilot stage looks promising and with some US focussed operators having been involved in that pilot, it would be interesting to see if the US states could come together to replicate such a register to protect the most vulnerable players when for example they physically relocate between states.

MA: Operators looking to succeed in their respective markets must demonstrate superior responsible gaming capabilities and may turn to technology to support their efforts. OpenBet’s Neccton empowers operators to effectively track player behaviour in real-time, offer limit setting and pop-up messaging functions, and integrate anti-money laundering and fraud detection tools.

My research in this sphere has shown that real-time interventions, such as reality checks, improve the effectiveness of player protection efforts. Our software, which is informed by academic research and adapted in line with the latest insights, is supported by a dedicated compliance consultancy service which gives operators the confidence to fulfil their responsible gaming responsibilities.

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What are the key priorities for suppliers in promoting responsible gaming in the years to come?

MA: Suppliers must keep up with the latest developments in responsible gaming tools and research as markets evolve. I have published more than 50 peer reviewed studies in academic journals related to safer gaming and continue to conduct contemporaneous research into player protection. Utilising real player data and insights from experts will help suppliers evolve their offerings to match the changing needs of operators and their customers.

Additionally, staying on the pulse of recent regulatory developments must also be a priority, as shortcomings can delay the production of much-needed software that instils confidence in operators and regulators alike and meets the needs of the market.

JP: The main focus for suppliers around safer gambling relates to game design. There isn’t that direct contact with the players, so the scope of direct interaction is removed. In this regard, harmonisation of standards and requirements around game design is hugely beneficial to all stakeholders.

We would love to see some of the excellent academic work being undertaken in this field being picked up, endorsed and incorporated into formal standards by regulators.

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All suppliers are willing to do whatever it takes to ensure their products help keep players safe but we want to ensure changes are going to achieve the desired outcome and the best way to do this is to take the evidence based approach.

GameplAI is harnessing the gains in automation seen in other tech sectors and bringing them to the sports betting industry, with more accurate pricing and automation which reduces the manual overhead of risk-management for trading teams. Its growing group of partners are benefiting from a series of never-before-seen, player-focused markets that engage fans both pre-game and in-play.

Gaming Americas caught up with their Co-Founder, Graham Savage, the man at the helm of a company on the road to becoming the premium supplier of automated and quantitative-driven sports solutions for the sector.

After GameplAI’s defining Q1 raise earlier this year, how have you been deploying the funds?

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There are two core priorities for the deployment of our capital. The first is the expansion of our team. We have already doubled the size of the team since January and we are still looking to hire additional technology and sports-modelling expertise. The second strand is a focus on licensing. Given the global footprint of our expanding customer base, we are actively pursuing licences in multiple U.S. states (and have already secured our first three in Virginia, Colorado and Iowa) in addition to emerging LatAm regions such as Peru and Argentina.

What does adding Marco Blume as an investor do for the company?

Marco provides fantastic insight and context in terms of what is most important to operators when assessing third-party products. Under his tenure, Pinnacle became a global leader in terms of sports product and pricing and this is the equivalent position that we are keen to assume within the suppliers’ sphere.

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How do you see the supply market changing in the year ahead?

We see a strong emphasis being placed by operators on both in-play and props products. We feel this will be a dual responsibility to solve, with the onus being on companies like ourselves to create innovative products bolstered by compelling and accurate pricing, whilst our B2C partners will prioritise delivering intuitive and engaging front end UI to further embellish the product experience.

How were the Euros/Copa America for you and your recent operator deals?

We used both tournaments as a test bed. Betano, the premium online sports betting and gaming brand, launched a segment of the football player props product that we have developed in conjunction with Opta data. These markets proved to be hugely popular and we will roll out our extensive football props solution with Betano over the coming weeks.

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In parallel, we launched a proof of concept of our football narrator product with a leading UK operator, which generates contextual markets in-play, relative to the most recent game state. These markets were really well-received by UK-based customers and we will look to broaden the scope of that collaboration, now that the domestic season has resumed.

What are the opportunities for GameplAI right now in the medium to long-term?

We have been very fortunate with the stature of partners with whom we are working. Their respective product and trading teams have been a fantastic support and resource for us – and working with people of that calibre will only serve to further enhance the quality of our product offering.

Broadening our international footprint is also hugely exciting and by the end of year we will be live with market-leading partners across three separate continents, which represents incredible progress in 12 months. We are hugely enthused at the prospects ahead and firmly believe GameplAI will be at the forefront of driving new product innovation in sports in 2025 and beyond.

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In your view, why do you think player acquisition costs are reaching record-high levels?

Allan Stone: We’re starting to see the impact of many of the privacy standards implemented. There is the Cookie deprecation that’s happened across both Google and iOS, as well as a lot of the ad identifiers being blocked by default, as opposed to as a setting that users can turn on. Operators haven’t been able to truly understand what the impact of this has been. They’re having to spend much more to achieve the same level of performance, simply because they don’t have a good understanding of the systems in place to hone in on where they are spending money to acquire players. As a result, operators are having to spend more money acquiring players that maybe aren’t the best quality and will likely churn.

From a regulatory perspective, especially in the US, there has been a bit of a slowdown in markets opening. We had an initial gold rush here in the US, but now, fewer states are coming online. We’re seeing a pullback on ad spend; even though it costs much more to acquire new players, operators aren’t spending as much as they used to. I think that’s an effect of over saturation in the market. Players have seen all these different products and different brands that are available to them. Essentially, the core products have become very commodotised. Every operator seems to offer pretty much the same slots as everyone else does.

What’s interesting is that if you’re to walk into a bunch of different casinos in Las Vegas, once you walk past the front doors, they all look and feel the same from a gaming perspective. Where they differ is through the experience that you get while in the casino; the design, the hospitality, etc. Those players that tend to play offline are starting to look towards those secondary offerings outside the core betting portfolio, they’re seeking more of an experience.

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I think that we haven’t seen that in the digital space yet. There is very little differentiation in user experience on one betting app compared to the others. Operators need to take the time and energy to really personalise and customise their user experience to individual players. When that starts to happen, this is when you start to see an increase in acquisition costs. But then you will also see a consolidation in those costs – operators will start to become more efficient, cost savings will come into play, and that is when these brands can really differentiate themselves from one another.

What’s the secret to keeping players coming back in the long term?   

Allan Stone: In a word, personalisation. It’s plain and simple. The more that brands can understand player behaviours and continue to create personalised experiences, the more they will keep players coming back in the long term.

I’ve heard a few different product people talk about how they can try personalise the experience further, and one idea was to emulate the experience that you get from apps such as Tinder where you swipe left or right to bet on different markets. What they realised was that the younger generation of players – who maybe weren’t as valuable – enjoyed that product feature, but their core betting customers weren’t as engaged. Operators are waking up to that now. If you want players to remain around, you’ve got to give them a reason to stay other than simply rolling out the same products as everyone else.

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For a lot of the North American brands, they’ve done a great job of tying their iGaming and sports betting experience into their land-based properties. As time goes on, and the market continues to mature, you’ll see much more of that starting to happen. The land-based and digital experiences can complement each other really well, when done right; operators need to make sure they have that streamlined experience across all touchpoints. Brands should be going beyond the standard, core betting experience and instead delivering something much more holistic, and much more personalised to each customer.

Historically, we’ve beta tested location-based suggestions during NFL games, whereby if someone opened up a betting app while in a stadium, then that would be a good indicator of what markets they would be looking to bet on. They’re more than likely wanting to bet on the game that is taking place in front of them. Operators could use this opportunity to offer micro betting markets, or player props to that player. We know that the technology is there to do this.

How do these approaches balance the need for immediate engagement with long-term loyalty?

Allan Stone: A lot of the data and technologies that exist to support operators from an AdTech and MarTech perspective, at least from an acquisition side, has not been great. But we are starting to see that change. Operators can no longer leverage 20-year-old technology to solve a modern-day problem. They need to get granular with the data that they have at their disposal and understand where they can improve their media buying efforts. They need to find out how many players they acquired, what their lifetime value is, whether there are any similarities and trends between those players. From there, operators can then optimise their campaigns to focus on just acquiring those players.

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There is much more that operators can be doing to leverage their data at scale and create massive efficiencies in their player acquisition – that, ultimately, would bring down costs. If you can create those efficiencies, you can theoretically reduce your costs by 20-30% which is a huge saving.