The Game Safety Institute secures capital from Underdog’s RG investment fund
Simo Dragicevic and Sarah Ramanauskas’ startup joins idPair in GuardDog’s portfolio with funding to be used to further develop risk-assessment platforms
Underdog has invested in The Game Safety Institute (GSI) via its GuardDog responsible gaming (RG) fund to support the building of intelligent assessment platforms.
GuardDog was launched in October last year with $1m in capital to deploy, as Underdog planned to facilitate growth in the RG sector by targeting “new and creative solutions”.
GSI was founded by former Playtech exec Simo Dragicevic and ex-William Hill head Sarah Ramanauskas a month before in September 2023 and acts as a knowledge hub for the industry to provide insight and expertise.
The GuardDog investment will be used by GSI to “build wider product intelligence platforms to more accurately assess risk for each game type” as part of its ongoing research into RG.
Capital will also be pushed to develop opportunities to “better educate players and showcase tools to help players control their play”.
The investment into GSI marks GuardDog’s second funding commitment since it launched.
The first was idPair in March, with the startup having gone on to launch the US’ first nationwide self-exclusion scheme.
Companies that are recipients of GuardDog funding will also be afforded mentorship and consultation from RG and industry experts, including Acies Investments partner Chris Grove, former executive director of the Indiana Gaming Commission Sara Tait and ex-director of the Colorado Division of Gaming Dan Hartman.
Adam Warrington, Underdog VP of responsible gaming, said the business was exploring RG “a little differently” by delving into “creative ideas.”
GSI co-founder Dragicevic said: “New RG solutions are complex to develop and deploy. They require wide stakeholder engagement, R&D [research and development] funding, and time.
“GuardDog is therefore a critical initiative as it supports the most innovative new RG ideas with not only capital, but access to a range of industry expertise. We are delighted to be partnering with Underdog.”
Ramanauskas added: “The majority of investment and innovation in RG over the past 15 years has been centred on solutions focused on the player. As these initiatives start to mature, we anticipate increased regulatory and industry focus on product safety.”