Q&A: Senet Group chair Wanda Goldwag

Having been established last September, the Senet Group has quickly gone about improving the UK-facing gambling industry’s public image and recently launched its first national advertising campaign to promote problem gambling awareness last month.

The self-regulatory group’s new chair Wanda Goldwag leads a three-strong independent board of directors whose role it will be to lead the Senet Group’s efforts and help monitor gambling advertising in the UK, ensuring it remains compliant with a voluntary code of conduct agreed upon by its founder members Ladbrokes, William Hill, Paddy Power and Coral.

Goldwag, founder of HR and recruitment consultancy True North Human Capital and civil service commissioner, speaks to eGaming Review about her plans for the group and how she wants it to replicate the Portman Group’s success for the alcohol industry.

eGR: Is self-regulation a chance for the industry to be more progressive than it has been before?

WG: Yes, I think that industries who don’t self-regulate deserve everything they get from a regulator. Self-regulation’s always a good point to start from. If you look at the Portman Group, which is what the Senet Group is loosely based on, there were times when what they did made the drinks industry quite uncomfortable because they set standards people didn’t particularly want to obey. But overall I think people would agree the Portman Group has been a success. It’s raised standards and it has raised the view that the drinks industry is responsible and that’s exactly what I’d like to replicate in the gambling industry.

eGR: How do you respond to suggestions the group is geared more towards land-based operators?

WG: I think it’s inevitable that, given who the first four members were, they would quickly try to address their own constituency, which does include their thousands of retail outlets. I think what we need to essentially now do is start addressing all channels, including the internet. It maybe that some companies that are internet only want to add a lot to the existing code of conduct and add additional promises that we just haven’t thought of.

eGR: And what would you consider as a success for the campaign?

WG: I think there are short-term, medium-term and long-term goals here. The long-term success for me would be fewer people becoming problem gamblers, and the short-term would be people having higher awareness of the campaign. We’re going to be tracking that to determine how many people are seeing our ads and how many people have got the point of them.

eGR: What can you offer to egaming operators?

WG: What I hope I’m offering them is the chance to be part of something that gives them credibility, that gives them the chance to receive public recognition of their high standards, and which allows them to be able to say they’re complying with this code of conduct voluntarily.

eGR: Would you say that’s an attractive proposition?

WG: I think people joining the Senet Group might suffer some short term pain – both financially as they would have to contribute and by volunteering to obey a code of conduct – but I would absolutely argue it’s for long-term benefits. I would argue that the more this industry shows it’s responsible, the less pressure from outside regulators and other people they will receive.

eGR: How confident are you that you can tempt further operators on board?

WG: I’m going to be confident in that I’m going to go and talk to them, and I’m going to understand their issues, and I’m also going to investigate whether we could be more aligned with their requirements. I’m not going to start by saying that everything the Senet Group has done so far is 100% fine, I’m going to talk to the internet gambling companies to question why they haven’t joined and ask if there’s something we could do to make it easier for them to join.