Neil McArthur – ‘The race is on for the industry to know its customers’

Speaking at the UK Gambling Commission’s ‘Raising Standards Conference’  hosted at the ICC in Birmingham, UKGC Chief Executive Neil McArthur states that all industry stakeholders have to improve operational standards and cooperation in order to ‘know their customers better’.

McArthur spoke to an audience of 170 executives from 100 gambling businesses, addressing public/political concerns during a disruptive year in which the UK gambling sector has generated national headlines following a number of compliance failures.

McArthur told the betting executives that their businesses should look to collaborate and focus on solving three core areas of improvement: –

• Understanding the early signs of problem-gambling being developed by customers
• Improving staff training on interaction with problem gambling
• Rebuilding public trust by changing advertising strategies.

The UKGC chief executive warns industry leadership to act fast on the above directives, which McArthur states have to be implemented across all levels of betting/gambling’s management structure.

“This is a call to action to join the race to the top,” he said. “A race to put your customers, their enjoyment and their safety at the top of the agenda for your management meetings, your board meetings and meetings with your investors.

“A race to approach the minimum requirements we impose as exactly that: minimums not maximums. A race to look for real solutions to the public health issue of gambling-related harm.”

In his speech, McArthur recognises that industry incumbents have had to adapt to changing conditions and further regulatory demands imposed by the government.

However, McArthur states that the tougher operational requirements are necessary for Britain to become the fairest and safest gambling jurisdiction in the world – the guiding principle of the UKGC as a regulatory organisation.

“I want consumers in Britain to be able to enjoy the fairest and safest gambling in the world… and to achieve my aims I need your support: I need you to work together to make sure you are the best – the fairest, safest – gambling operators in the world.”

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Read Neil McArthur full ‘Raising Standards Conference’  speech.