Responsible Gambling and player safety have always been one of those long-disputed topics in the industry since some believe it is not safe, while others believe that balance and moderation are essential to having a good time.
Given how long the debate has been going on, even the newly expanding USA market could be seeing a resurgent wave of gambling problems.
User Safety First Websites
It was not long ago the Supreme Court decision in May 2018 meant that every state could finally allow online gambling – which although good, has already opened the door to some issues and campaigners are calling for reform.
Skyrocketing wagers across the country have some members of the public concerned as young men are developing unhealthy relationships with gambling. This is a problem that many gambling regulators across the globe are taking heed of.
That said, we compiled data on how often prominent gambling sites reference player safety on their homepage. We looked at 25 of the most popular gambling sites to see how many times safety-related keywords like limit, responsible and time-out are featured on the homepages and dedicated responsible gambling pages.
Online casino site, Mr Green, tops the chart with 121 total references to safety throughout its homepage and dedicated responsible gambling page. LV Bet follows closely behind with 119 total references, with Trada Casino rounding off the top 3 with 105.
Online gambling giants Paddy Power and Bet365 trail behind with only 34 and 12 safety references overall, respectively.
Shockingly, Fruity Casa has zero references to safe gambling on its homepage and all 53 safety references were on its dedicated responsible gambling page instead.
Of the 25 gambling sites analysed, 48% of the sites fell behind the average of 63 safety references across their homepages and dedicated responsible gambling pages.
What Do the Studies Say?
Studies show that language has a powerful influence on shaping consumer behaviour and that using language alters people’s perception of products and services. In this case, gambling sites have a responsibility to use language that helps players understand the importance of responsible gambling and keeping habits on the fun side.
Reputable gambling sites must follow strict government regulations to make them more transparent with their users about the details of their gambling and may even prompt them to take charge of their gambling habits.
However, with the online gambling market only getting larger and larger – as well as new gambling opportunities like crypto-gambling on the rise – the risk of harmful illegitimate sites entering the sphere becomes a real possibility.
Unfortunately, some shady sites entice users with exorbitantly high pay-out offers and confusing bonuses, refuse to pay out winnings and sometimes even change their terms and conditions on an as-needed basis – even at a time when company and government focus on user safety is at all-time high3.
Simple changes like deposit and wager limit tools, the ability to choose mandatory cool-off periods, and a reality check and self-assessment tool - can help go a long way to keeping the fun in gambling.
In response to this, we recently released a Responsible Gambling Tab to our casino reviews – to give you the knowledge to identify if your safety is a priority in their business model. More about it can be found in our gambling blog, which provides further guidance on how to play safely.
Methodology
To get the results, we first collected words and phrases that reflected their safety values or implied users stayed safe while gambling. This gave us a selection of 17 safety terms to analyse.
We then got the top 25 gambling sites based on data from the AskGamblers website. Following, we tallied up the number of mentions of these keywords throughout the homepage and ranked them in order of most to least mentions.
