William Hill makes ‘Nobody harmed by gambling’ commitment
IR chief Lyndsay Wright to lead the operator’s new responsible gambling initiative as its first-ever director of sustainability
William Hill has set out an ambition that “nobody is harmed by gambling” as part of a new initiative that will see the operator introduce a Responsible Gambling Innovation Fund and mandatory loss limit tools for at-risk customers.
The operator has outlined a total of nine commitments to help tackle the issue of problem gambling in the UK which are split into three categories: ‘immediate actions’, ‘long-term programmes’ and ‘wider collaboration’.
‘Immediate actions’ include providing customers with better data to help them make conscious choices, while long-term goals include developing targeted KPIs on responsible gambling and an innovation fund to pilot new ideas
The ‘Nobody harmed by gambling’ pledge will be led by the operator’s current director of strategy and investor relations, Lyndsay Wright, who will become William Hill’s first director of sustainability.
Wright, who originally joined William Hill in 2008, said the industry had “fallen short of what is expected of us” but pledged to tackle the issue of problem gambling in the UK.
“Getting this right is critical to our long-term success as a business,” Wright said.
She added: “We want our customers to enjoy gambling as part of their leisure time and to stay betting with us for the long term – which means only gambling what they can afford.
“We’ve taken steps towards solving this – but it’s just not enough. That’s why we’ve set the bold ambition that nobody is harmed by gambling.”
According to William Hill, approximately 430,000 people in the UK are impacted by problem gambling, while another two million more are deemed to be at risk.
Wright continued: “The fact that my role covers both strategy and sustainability, and reports to our CFO, shows the priority this now has within William Hill.
“This is a long-term ambition. We need to test and learn to find what will have a real impact on the problem. And we’ll share what we learn with everyone else with a stake in the issue – to help us move faster, together.”
Read more about ‘Nobody harmed by gambling’ via William Hill’s infographic here.
The announcement comes just days after LeoVegas reorganised its business with a new focus on sustainability, following repeated warnings from the UK Gambling Commission that it expects the sector to be more proactive on problem gambling.