The term responsible gambling is often bandied about. Companies declare they are committed to being “responsible.” But when campaigns focus on the phrase, players usually check out.
Critics argue that gambling companies do not really care whether players engage in their responsible gambling tools. Recovered gambling addict Louis Ruggiero told CasinoBeats in an interview recently that sponsoring responsible gambling campaigns is little more than a receipt.
“It’s what they point to when a regulator or a reporter comes asking questions,” he said. “If they were committed to responsible gambling, their business model wouldn’t depend on the people who can’t stop.”
Yet, what ultimately matters to companies is player engagement, and responsible gambling tools and campaigns can be another way to engage users and keep them coming back to the platform.
Warnings Miss the Mark
“Framing matters enormously: the moment Responsible Gaming stops feeling like a warning and starts feeling like a genuine, human check-in, players engage with it very differently,” WinSpirit Casino PR Kate Jones told CasinoBeats.
The online casino operator has been working with Dr. Mary Donohue to integrate her research and ideas from the Digital Wellness Center into its platform.
Dr. Donohue told CasinoBeats in a recent interview that part of the problem with responsible gambling efforts is that they tend to be reactive rather than proactive.
“Current RG focuses on, ‘Oh, you’ve made a bad decision, you’ve bet over your normal amount. You should do this or this,’” she says.
Jones similarly noted that such warnings to players are often ignored.
“The industry still treats Responsible Gaming as a static, defensive feature — warnings and disclaimers — when the real opportunity is to make it feel human and relevant,” she added. “That’s the thread connecting our work with the Digital Wellness Center and initiatives like SmartPlay: RG works best when it doesn’t feel like RG.”
Simon Vincze is Head of Sustainable & Safer Gambling at Casino Guru, a casino review site that generates money by sending players to online casinos. The company also worked with Dr. Donohue and WinSpirit on campaigns. Vincze noted that users tend to ignore anything that is directly framed as “responsible gambling.”
“Historically, anything which was directly connected with responsible gambling, like ‘this is responsible gambling’—the attention and engagement were very low,” he told CasinoBeats over a video call last week.
“One of the main reasons that I see why people are not engaging with RG tools that much is that they still feel like this is not something for them, and it’s boring, and it’s just for the ones who cannot control themselves,” he adds.
Promoting Positive Play as a Business Strategy
Both WinSpirit and Casino Guru’s business models are centered on gamblers losing money. If they do not open accounts and gamble, then the businesses fail.
That leads people like Ruggiero to dismiss any efforts to get players to play responsibly as disingenuous. However, it is equally damaging to businesses if players start to believe they are going to become addicted to gambling and lose all their money. And if they do this, operators lose customers and get sued.
There is, therefore, a sweet spot where players become a little more responsible, but still continue gambling. It is similar to most products that are harmful to our health. If someone eats McDonald’s every day, they will soon become sick and either not want to come back or not physically be able to, such as in Morgan Spurlock’s documentary Super Size Me.
For gambling, if a player constantly places bets and becomes addicted, they will likely lose all their money. This will negatively impact their job, and they may well end up losing their source of income. With no income, they can no longer gamble. Either that or they will seek help from organizations such as Gamblers Anonymous, which advocates complete abstinence from gambling.
“Responsible gambling is an oxymoron,” Dr. Donohue says. “Gambling is supposed to be fun and a challenge.”
She is “not doing this as a checkbox exercise; she genuinely wants to make the experience safer and more enjoyable for players, and that comes through in everything the team builds,” says Jones. “On our end, we’re glad to support initiatives like this, because it’s a win for us too — when players walk away from a session feeling satisfied, rested, and good about the experience, that’s exactly the kind of relationship with the game we want to build.”
Engaging & Empowering Rather Than Restricting
Vincze also noted that users were engaged with the responsible gambling campaign he ran in collaboration with the Digital Wellness Center.
Casino Guru launched a competition for forum users last year. Players could win Amazon vouchers by using the Digital Wellness Center’s doodles, short quizzes designed to reset their brains.
The campaign led to surprisingly high engagement. The forum post had over 110,000 views and 23 pages of comments as users shared their experiences of using the tool. By comparison, a similar campaign focused more directly on RG had under 25,000 views and 5 pages of comments.
“It was very successful,” said Vincze. “People were really enjoying it, so we were very excited. It was empowering individuals to make better decisions. I don’t think it is a silver bullet for everything, but I think that it’s a very innovative way that can be successful.”
It works better than other responsible gambling tools, as it does not remind users about their gambling habits or set restrictions. The other campaign offered the chance to win Amazon vouchers if users provided feedback on BetWell, a tool for tracking gambling spend. Users were far less engaged.
“Most RG tools are restrictive,” Vincze continues. “So, as a player, I’m using them because I can’t control myself. I put in a limit, I put in a budget, I self-exclude myself, or I will just take a break, you know, like a shorter self-exclusion, a couple of days or something, and I am blocking my access, and I am giving the key for that lock to someone else because I’m not capable of doing it on my own.”
“But, we don’t like someone telling us what to do. We don’t like to feel restricted. Ideally, we find it out on our own. If you frame it differently, make it more personalized, and combine it with something more fun, I believe it can be way more effective. It’s doing safer gambling without calling it safer gambling.”
Wellness Campaigns Keep Users Coming Back
Casino Guru also ran a campaign with the Digital Wellness Center via its newsletter, which had similarly high engagement and, importantly, kept players returning.
“We asked our newsletter subscribers if they wanted to receive the tool. We didn’t frame it as responsible gambling; we framed it as a wellness tool. Firstly, the open rate was very high, the engagement was very high, and the most interesting fact was that people are returning to these emails and opening them again.”
This can be useful for gambling affiliates and operators to keep users coming back to their sites. That can translate into the ultimate goal for companies: generating more profit.
Striking the Right Balance
There are not many gambling affiliates running these kinds of campaigns, says Vincze, but he is also careful about how far the company wants to go with such initiatives. The danger would be that people reduce their gambling, stop signing up to websites, and the business model falls apart.
“We need to be careful about the journey that we influence. We want to provide this information in a way that is not disruptive. We have to think about where to place these elements on our website so they naturally influence behavior without disrupting the individual’s initial intention to gamble,” Vincze says honestly.
“Operators may want to protect their players and reduce gambling-related harm, but they still need to balance it so they meet the expectations and intentions of their players,” he adds.
But one of the benefits of running these kinds of campaigns is that players start to trust the brand more. Building that positive association can be great for business in the long term, even if it means losing some gamblers in the process.
“Just like casinos, taking short-term revenue hits from responsible gambling measures yields reliable, long-term profits by keeping players active within their limits—a strategy that directly aligns with our core focus on player retention,” says Vincze.
