Proactive RG Communications using Playscan risk analysis
- 1. Proactive responsible gambling communication Axel Lyckberg, Product Owner, Playscan - Svenska Spel RG Seminar, Lisbon, September 6 2018
- 2. “The money was supposed to pay for our wedding” - Quote from a player we called in our latest RG initiative. Proactive responsible gambling phone calls.
- 3. We want to deliver attractive games in a responsible manner Gambling should be for everyone’s enjoyment
- 4. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers If we look at the Swedish population we see that during a year a bit more than half of us gamble some time and a small fraction of about 2% lose control at some point during the year and experience negative consequences of gambling.
- 5. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers TREATMENT A fraction of problem gamblers, about 5% reach out and seek help. When gamblers seek treatment they have often put both themselves and others in harm. Treatment is expensive but often efficient and has a big impact on the treated individual.
- 6. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers AWARENESS CAMPAIGNS Public health agencies On the other end of the spectrum we have a public health agency that educates about risks with gambling. Educating the general population that gambling comes with a risk is of course important. However, to break through in the endless stream of information of modern society is hard and costly, although reaching a lot of people the impacts of awareness campaigns are often hard to measure.
- 7. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers GENERAL RG-INFORMATION RG-tools: self-exclusion, limit-setting etc Gambling companies Looking at responsible gambling it can be seen as the middle ground. Or as public health professionals like to call our line of work - secondary prevention. Working actively with prevention with target groups. 15 years ago the idea of what online responsible gambling, was a link to a static site with information on where to go. We added self-tests, self-exclusion, limit setting etc. All of which are important and which impacts the research backs up. Now our experience with these RG-tools is that the more we expose them more people use them. But exposure comes with the balancing of the gambling experience.
- 8. Identifying at-risk gamblers Facts and Behaviour markers • TIME • MONEY • INTENSITY • LOSS OF CONTROL • AGELow risk High risk At the core of Playscan is the idea that we can predict the risk of developing problem gambling by looking at gambling behavior. We look at different markers of time and money, intensity of gameplay, indicators of loss of control and age available through registered gameplay. By looking at these markers and comparing the behaviors to answers of self-assessment tests of gambling problems we can learn and predict gambling habits that elevates risk of experiencing gambling harm.
- 9. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers TARGETED RG-COMMUNICATION Gambling companies The Playscan risk classification enables us to create target groups of the few percent of players that are in risk of experiencing gambling harm. These players are of course more interesting and more interested in how to play safe and keep gambling under control.
- 10. Proactive responsible gambling – nudging target groups • Static link to self-test • Visible for all players CASE 1
- 11. Proactive responsible gambling – nudging target groups • Notification lit • Fewer targeted players CASE 2 !
- 12. Proactive responsible gambling – nudging target groups 27766 tests taken 8181 tests taken ! Now it turns out that even though the exposure static link to the self-test is many times higher we still get quite a few more tests with our nudging technique. Furthermore, we get tests from a group of players we are more interested in taking the test, while the curious low-risk gamblers can still take the test at the static page.
- 13. Proactive responsible gambling – Nudging target groups When does it work? • Playing on curiosity • Learn more about myself • Learn about expenditure • Learn about me in relation to others • Brief motivational interventions What is harder? • Self exclusion • Contacting national help line … messages that asks for big decisions
- 14. Non-gamblers Leisure gamblers At-risk Problem gamblers PROACTIVE CALLS
- 15. Pilot: Calling high-risk and problem gamblers Who did we contact? 71 players from three target groups: • Big losers • Young risk players • Players with a problematic gambling profile
- 16. Pilot: Calling high-risk and problem gamblers Who did we contact? 71 players from three target groups: • Big losers • Young risk players • Players with a problematic gambling profile • Average length: 7 minutes • Average age: 37 A typical call starts with an introduction and a question. ”Can I talk a moment with you about your gambling habits?” A majority that answered their phone said yes to this. We then typically asked if they knew how much the gambling cost them the last month and after having them guess we told them the truth, which more often then not was a higher figure.
- 17. Pilot: Calling high-risk and problem gamblers Who did we contact? 71 players from three target groups: • Big losers • Young risk players • Players with a problematic gambling profile Out of the 71 phone calls 11 people chose some type self-exclusion immediately at the time of the call. The most common conversation concerned limit setting and information about the consumption history. • Average length: 7 minutes • Average age: 37
- 18. Pilot: Calling high-risk and problem gamblers Who did we contact? 71 players from three target groups: • Big losers • Young risk players • Players with a problematic gambling profile • Average length: 7 minutes • Average age: 37 Out of the 71 phone calls 11 people chose some type self-exclusion immediately at the time of the call. The most common conversation concerned limit setting and information about the consumption history. 98% was either positive or neutral towards the call
- 19. Pilot: Calling high-risk and problem gamblers Who did we contact? 71 players from three target groups: • Big losers • Young risk players • Players with a problematic gambling profile Out of the 71 phone calls 11 people chose some type self-exclusion immediately at the time of the call. The most common conversation concerned limit setting and information about the consumption history. 98% was either positive or neutral towards the call The intervention has proven quite effectively to fill a gap of motivating players to take action for their own well being.
- 20. One of the best effects of the proactive calls was that they were highly appreciated. Even so if the person called did not experience loss of control or harm to his or herself almost everyone was either neutral or positive that we called. Or as one middle-aged man said: Gambling is my big interest and I can afford it, but if this was my child you called after playing like this I would by very grateful
- 21. Thank you! Axel Lyckberg, Product Owner Playscan axel.lyckberg@svenskaspel.se
Editor's Notes
- #3: This is a quote from a player we called in our latest RG initiative. Proactive responsible gambling phone calls. We have started calling our most at-risk players, asking them if they are playing for the right reasons and aiding them if they they’re not. Today I would like to make a case that an efficient responsible gambling program can and needs to work on multiple levels.
- #4: We are all members of responsible lottery companies. We strive to provide the most attractive game offerings – but we also strive to minimize harm through our responsible gambling initiatives. At Svenska Spel we say that consumer protection is more important than attractive games – but of course it is still an intricate balancing act. In our experience it turns out this balance more and more seem to become a mosaic of different responsible gambling initiatives at different levels on a gambling risk spectrum.
- #5: If we look at the swedish population we see that during a year a bit more than half of us gamble some time. Some gamble more. And a small fraction of about 2% lose control at some point during the year and experience negative consequences of gambling.
- #6: A fraction of problem gamblers, about 5% reach out and seek help. When gamblers seek treatment they have often put both themselves and others in harm. Treatment is expensive but often efficient and has a big impact on the treated individual.
- #7: On the other end of the spectrum we have a public health agency that educates about risks with gambling. Educating the general population that gambling comes with a risk is of course important. However to break through in the endless stream of information of modern society is hard and costly, although reaching a lot of people the impacts of awareness campaigns are often hard to measure.
- #8: Looking at responsible gambling it can be seen as the middle ground. Or as public health professionals like to call our line of work - secondary prevention. Working actively with prevention with target groups. 15 years ago the idea of what online responsible gambling, was a link to a static site with information on where to go. We added self-tests, self-exclusion, limit setting etc. All of which are important and which impacts the research backs up. They help players. Now our experience with these RG-tools is that the more we expose them more people use them. But exposure comes with the balancing of the gambling experience. // If we group the players into even more specific target groups then we can increase the level of RG without bothering the leisure gamblers and still keep it cost efficient. I started working at Svenska Spel back in 2010 and the mission was to develop our newly acquired responsible gambling tool Playscan.
- #9: At the core of Playscan is the idea that we can predict the risk of developing problem gambling by looking at gambling behaviour. We look at different markers of time and money, intensity of gameplay, indicators of loss of control and age available through registered gameplay. By looking at these markers and comparing the behaviors to answers of self-assessment tests of gambling problems we can learn and predict gambling habits that elevates risk of experiencing gambling harm.
- #10: The Playscan risk classification enables us to create target groups of the few percent of players that are in risk of experiencing gambling harm. These players are of course more interesting and more interested in how to play safe and keep gambling under control. I will give two examples on how we work proactively reaching at-risk players with RG initiatives.
- #11: This is a case study where we compared two presentations of the self-test. On one hand we have a classic RG exposure of the self-test with a link on a highly visible page at our website. It is always visible.
- #12: On the other hand we target a small percentage of at-risk gamblers with a Facebook-like notification. A nudge asking the players to take a self-test to see where they fall on the scale, green, yellow or red.
- #13: Now it turns out that even though the exposure static link to the self-test is many times higher we still get quite a few more tests with our nudging technique. Furthermore we get tests from a group of players we are more interested in taking the test, while the curious low-risk gamblers can still take the test at the static page.
- #14: So we have been experimenting with this proactive nudging for the last 8 years or so and this is what we have learned so far. It seems to be work best when the message we send play on the curiosity of the player. We have tried other persuasion techniques but curiosity has to date yielded our best conversion rates in comparison. We see that all types of tests where the players learn more about themselves work with nudging. Self-assessment tests, what type of gambler am I etc. Hard facts about my gambling and how I gamble in relation to other gamblers work. What is normal, how am I playing in relation to others etc. In general we see that the interventions need to be brief in time, not to cognitively demanding and not demand a high degree of motivation. Asking players to self exclude or call the national help line (even though they say that gambling are ruining their life in a self-test) seem to work poorly. They are too demanding a message to be sent by a nudge.
- #15: So this was an initial motivation to trying out proactive telephone calls. We first started looking into trying this out a few years ago, but we had some legal thresholds that we had to work through in order to be allowed to call. While we were on hold Norsk Tipping started calling so when we were ready to call they already worked out a great method and had some really promising results we could lean against.
- #16: So in short what we did in our pilot was to sort out the players with the highest risk-level with Playscan. On top of the high-risk criteria we sorted out three groups that we called. Either someone who lost a great deal of money, which was set at 800€ during the last month. Or a bit lower amount lost, but a under 25 years of age Or players who answered that they had significant issues in their lives because of gambling in a self-test.
- #17: A typical call starts with an introduction and a question. ”Can I talk a moment with you about your gambling habits?” A majority that answered their phone said yes to this. And the we typically asked if they knew how much the gambling cost them the last month and after having them guess we told them the truth, which more often then not was a higher figure. All calls lasted between 1 and 30 minutes with a mean of 7 minutes. And we called quite a few more younger than older players.
- #18: In the end it turns out that this intervention has proven quite effectively to fill a gap of motivating players to take action for their own well being. 11 out of 71 chose to self exclude for some period time, for some type of game or all games, which is a quite powerful impact. We also got to inform about all of the great RG tools we have, limit settings and how to keep track of your gambling expanditure.
- #19: And one of the best effects of the proactive calls was that they were highly appreciated. Even so if the person called did not experience loss of control or harm to his or herself almost everyone was either neutral or positive that we called. Or as one middle-aged man said, gambling is my big interest and i can afford it, but if this was my child you called after playing like this I would by very grateful. In the light of this success we have continued to call our players proactively and we are currently working on setting the structures to make it a permanent part of our RG portfolio.
- #20: And one of the best effects of the proactive calls was that they were highly appreciated. Even so if the person called did not experience loss of control or harm to his or herself almost everyone was either neutral or positive that we called. Or as one middle-aged man said, gambling is my big interest and i can afford it, but if this was my child you called after playing like this I would by very grateful. In the light of this success we have continued to call our players proactively and we are currently working on setting the structures to make it a permanent part of our RG portfolio.
- #22: It’s a short presentation, but I would love to talk about this and share knowledge so if you’re interested and have detail questions please grab me at a later time.