Stronger together: ROGA’s mission to educate and collaborate on responsible gambling

With September’s Responsible Gaming Education Month underway, the Responsible Online Gaming Association (ROGA) has announced its first education initiative since the independent trade association launched in March 2024.

Led by Jennifer Shatley, who has worked in responsible gambling (RG) for more than 25 years, including a 17-year stint at Caesars Entertainment, ROGA has unveiled the development of a national college RG education campaign to launch in early 2025. 

The program, run in partnership with EPIC Global Solutions, Kindbridge Behavioral Health, and the Responsible Gambling Council (RGC), will use digital delivery tools to provide RG and financial literacy education to students and university-aged individuals across the US. 

The initiative will also aim to destigmatize the issue of problem gambling through the integration of lived experience of those affected by it.

Education is one of the five pillars that ROGA is focused on, including awareness around encouraging responsible advertising and marketing practices. 

Collectively, ROGA’s members – consisting of Bally’s Corporation, BetMGM, bet365, DraftKings, Fanatics Betting and Gaming, FanDuel, Hard Rock Digital, and PENN Entertainment – have committed more than $20m to enable ROGA to achieve its mission. 

Alongside consumer and industry RG education awareness, ROGA’s other pillars are research, promoting RG best practice, creating an independent data clearing house, and establishing an independent certification program. 

Here, Shatley outlines the strength of working together as an industry on RG, how the online and retail sectors can learn from each other, and the importance of data sharing.

Jennifer Shatley has made it her mission to raise awareness of responsible gambling

EGR North America (EGR NA): You’ve been executive director of ROGA for six months. How has it been going so far?

Jennifer Shatley (JS): We’re looking to move forward meaningful initiatives under each of our five pillars. So, we’ve really been digging in and defining the initial things that we want to do within each of them. 

We’re already starting to put some of this into practice with our first college RG education campaign, which is tailored to the unique needs of college-aged students. 

We’ll be leveraging digital delivery tools to provide RG and financial literacy education to anyone in this age group – they do not have to be enrolled in a university to access these resources. 

We’ve partnered with organizations that have experience in creating RG awareness programs for these audiences: EPIC Global Solutions, Kindbridge Behavioral Health, and the RGC. Collaboration is extremely important for us, especially around education efforts. 

We’re also looking at research: what are the first types of research we want to launch? Really defining our research agenda moving forward and even just the process, quite frankly. 

There’s a lot that goes into the processes, such as how do you evaluate? What’s the criteria? How do you partner with organizations that are experienced within the realm of responsible gaming and gaming research? All of the technicalities, we’re figuring that out. 

Same thing with the certification and the data clearing house, as we’re looking at developing the RFP for that and putting it out fairly quickly. 

EGR NA: You have worked in the gambling industry for quite a long time, in places such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the RGC, and Caesars. Can you talk about your experience and how you have brought that into your role at ROGA? 

JS: I’ve been in the industry for 27 years, but I’ve been in RG specifically for 25. I do have a unique perspective around RG because I come at it from a lot of different directions. 

I have 17 years of operations experience from when I was at Harrah’s and Caesars. I was their VP of responsible gaming policies and compliance, and I had the fortune in that role to do a lot of ‘firsts’ in the industry. 

So, around 2003, we created things that are normal now but that were unheard of at the time. Things like proactively engaging guests around RG, having conversations with guests if there were concerns, and basing those conversations on motivational interviewing techniques to try to change behavior or motivate behavioral change. It’s very prevention focused. Also, the first ad campaign that was completely devoted to responsible gaming and not a marketing campaign.

There was also the first technology around excluding guests across all 55 of our properties so if they excluded at one, they excluded at all. Plus, the first training programs around that engagement with guests. 

I also have a perspective from my research background. I was a consulting partner at the RGC in Ontario, and I was running the research department there. I was also the consulting lead at the International Gaming Institute at UNLV and looking at research there as well. That helps me translate research into ways that can be operational within a gaming environment. 

So, instead of just research for research’s sake, it’s looking at these academic research reports and saying, ‘well, then how can we then operationalize that? How can we turn that into something actionable that we can do within a gaming environment?’

I also have policy experience in that my doctorate is in public policy. I’ve served on the boards of several government departments and associations. I also have an advocacy perspective as well. I’ve been the president of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling for about a decade now, but I’ve always been involved with that organization throughout my 25 years of being in responsible gaming. 

So, I do look at this from a lot of different perspectives, which is unique. That’s very helpful in terms of understanding all the different aspects around responsible gaming and problem gambling policy because they are very different, and I drive policies, training, and education around that. 

Fanatics is one of the founding members of ROGA

EGR NA: Why was now the right time to set up ROGA?

JS: Online gaming and sports betting is fairly new in the US. Each of our operators and members are doing their own things in responsible gaming. They have programs implemented and they’re all doing research. But I do think they understood that we could do so much more collectively. 

There’s an understanding that where we are right now is looking at what was traditionally done in bricks and mortar, and trying to transfer that over to an online space. We don’t know if that’s the best way. 

There could be better ways to do it in an online space. So, we’re exploring how we can evolve programs, and how we can make them specifically tailored for an online environment.

EGR NA: What are ROGA’s main objectives?

JS: We have those five pillars. Everything we’re doing is all about protecting the wellbeing of the customer and the player by giving them the right tools, the right information, and the right programs. 

Of the five main initiatives, research is probably the most significant because that’s going to drive most of the other pillars and their initiatives. Because responsible gaming research itself is a very young field, and definitely in the online space, there’s not a lot that we know from evidence-based best practices. 

One of the first and foremost things we want to do is look at how to drive that research field forward: how do we get a better understanding of what we should be doing – how we should be doing it, evaluating what we’re doing, and really improving on it? That’s number one. 

We also want to develop a lot of best practices in a lot of areas. So, looking at the very first one we’re engaging in from a research perspective and best practice is engagement with the RG limit-setting tools – how do we increase engagement because we know these tools are helpful? These tools are for all customers. That is the point of these tools. 

The target audience is the entire player base – they are prevention, limit-setting tools to give players the ability to set limits that are right for them. And to do that right on the platform. Also looking at how to increase that engagement because I think a lot of players don’t engage with the tools because they think they’re ‘problem gambling’ tools, and they don’t need to use them. So, we want to try to change that.

Then we’re looking at education. The education and awareness efforts are extremely important for a diverse group of audiences and in a diverse way. We need to move beyond just putting a tagline and a phone number on our sites or on advertising. For instance, what are these public awareness campaigns that we could be doing that could be much more beneficial? 

Our target audience for our first education campaign, which will launch in early 2025, will be university-aged individuals. Our goal here is to educate this demographic about RG concepts, raise awareness about the consequences of problem gambling, and equip students with financial literacy skills so they can build good financial habits regardless of whether they engage in gaming or not.

We are also building this data clearing house, and that really is about how we can better share information across our members. Specifically, the first one we’re looking at is self-exclusion. I know there’s a scheme in the UK for that and we’re looking at it in the US. 

Here, it’s been difficult from a state perspective to do that because of regulations. So, we’re looking at how we can do that through ROGA and our eight members that represent 85% of the market. 

How can we better facilitate information-sharing across our members? For example, if someone excludes on one site, we can more holistically protect the player across all our members where instead of them just being excluded on one site, they would be excluded across all. We’re in the early stages of getting an RFP for that. But we look at that as being an iterative process. Eventually, we want to get to the point where we’re sharing information around risk, and then how we better communicate that information across all our operators. 

The final objective we’re looking at is an independent certification program. That one really is to give a third-party independent evaluation of RG efforts so operators can understand where they’re doing well and where there are opportunities for improvement, and consumers can have a better feel for the robust, responsible gaming efforts that each operator has so they can make the best decision of which one they want to engage with. 

ROGA will target university-aged individuals in its first RG education campaign

EGR NA: Your members represent 85% of the market. How are these operators helping to achieve ROGA’s mission and do you expect more members to join?

JS: They’re extremely engaged, which is fantastic. They’re helping drive forward some of these initiatives, and they’re very eager to learn more and see how they can evolve their programs and what we can learn together as far as best practices so we can raise the standard, not only for our members but the industry in general. 

I’m very lucky I have a very engaged membership, and we are planning to expand membership. Our initial focus is really to push forward some initiatives. That’s really been the focus for the past few months. 

But we are working on a membership structure and what that would look like moving forward. We look forward to welcoming not only operators, but also suppliers and those that are tangential such as leagues, teams, or media.

EGR NA: Regarding the data clearing house, how do you envisage that will work? What type of data do you expect to be shared among operators?

JS: Initially, it would be the self-exclusion data. So, if someone self-excludes at one of our operator sites, then that information would be propagated to the other operators. We’re putting out the RFP, so we’ll figure out the technology around that, but initially it will be self-exclusion data. 

Moving forward, all our operators do have ways that they identify risk, so we would be looking at how we share some of those risk indicators across operators. Followed by what is the action to be taken once that information is shared. 

EGR NA: How important is it to make clear RG is about prevention rather than dealing with problem gambling once it has already happened?

JS: It’s extremely important. One of the things I’ve learned throughout my career is no matter how effective and robust the responsible gaming tools or information we offer, if people aren’t engaging with it because they think it’s ‘problem gambling’ and they don’t consider themselves problem gamblers, then it’s not effective. 

We really need to position responsible gaming programs and the understanding that these are prevention programs. The target audience is all players. We should be looking at this from a prevention perspective, not waiting for people to develop problems then try to identify that and do something at that point. 

What we should be doing is prevention efforts, identifying risk along the way, and trying to motivate behavioral change to prevent problems . That is a big learning . How do we do that? How do we make these programs resonate with the target audience and not keep positioning them as problem gambling programs? Because unfortunately, usually the narrative is whenever you talk about responsible gaming, the conversation immediately shifts to problem gambling. 

One of the research topics and agendas we’ll look at is how do we even position and brand these programs? What do we even call them and does that make a difference? And how will that change engagement with players? 

EGR NA: Do you think responsible gaming is being tackled enough within the industry? Is the online sector taking any learnings from bricks and mortar or vice versa?

JS: There’s always room for evolution. Technology and knowledge are always evolving and that’s one of the reasons why ROGA was created: to push forward and evolve what we are doing. 

There are some robust being done but we can always improve. That’s the research we want to do: evidence-based improvements of what it is that we can implement. 

Maybe there are things we aren’t offering now that we should be, and maybe some things we’re offering now aren’t really having the effect we want them to. But we need evaluation frameworks to even understand that. 

Most of what we’re doing in the online space, we have learned from the bricks-and-mortar experience. But online gives us advantages in some places. In a bricks-and-mortar setting, we tell people to spend within their means and to set time limits. But in the online space, we actually give them the tools to do it, so they have tools to actually set that up within the site itself. 

If you’re a retail player, you can go in and play with cash, not use a loyalty card, and nobody knows who you are. Whereas online, we actually see a holistic view of the player and we know who they are. That gives us advantages as well.

ROGA is working on using technology to enhance responsible gambling tools

EGR NA: Will ROGA be looking at the use of technology to enhance RG tools and initiatives going forward? 

JS: Yes, technology is definitely an area we’re looking to evolve. These companies are tech companies at their very base. So, looking at how we can utilize emerging technology and how that will impact RG.

EGR NA: How closely does ROGA work with state regulators?

JS: Right now, as we’re just getting established, we haven’t yet. There’s interest in what our plans are, in terms of what we plan to do from an association perspective, but we look to be very collaborative across all stakeholders in the RG ecosystem. We definitely want to share and be collaborative with our findings, best practices, and research that that we do.

EGR NA: What’s next for ROGA in terms of pressing forward with aims and objectives?

JS: It’s really to start moving some of these initiatives forward. In addition to the college education campaign launching early next year, we are also working with RGC on a research initiative to assess current RG tool use and gain a better understanding of perceived barriers to use. 

These findings will provide insights into current RG tool engagement so we can understand which have gained traction as well as those being underutilized, and why. We’ll then look at the plan for the following 12 to 24 months for the next iterations of those as we develop new strategies to increase RG resource utilization. 

The collective commitment from our operators is to really drive the field forward. Our overarching goal is to enhance RG efforts and protect the wellbeing of players. Everything we are doing is with that in sight. Plus, we want to be incredibly collaborative and really look at how to evolve and improve the RG programs we have.