We’re All In This Together

When it comes to responsible gambling, everyone has a role to play. The bettor, the operator, and the government.

Some interesting conversations have been taking place about the role of the operator, the regulator, and the customer in responsible gambling. The discussions remind me of one of the catchphrases I use during children’s classes at my martial arts school (usually when they are mailing in a drill): “I can only show you what to do. I can’t do it for you.”

It’s a fun way to start a conversation about shared responsibility and is a little more pointed than the idiom, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”

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My responsibility is to possess some type of knowledge and relay it to the student.

The student’s responsibility is to absorb that information to the best of their ability.

That’s the simplistic version. For actual results, I must relay the information in a safe, productive, and entertaining way.

For students to improve, they must put in the time and effort to see results.

If any of my three pillars is missing (the drill isn’t safe, productive, or enjoyable), the student’s ability to absorb the information will suffer. If the student is inconsistent and doesn’t put in the requisite effort, there isn’t going to be much progress.

Again, “I can only show you what to do. I can’t do it for you.”

This shared accountability is also the case for responsible gambling and for those who have slipped into problematic play.

The Shared Role of the Operator and the Customer

The truth is that everyone has a part to play in responsible gambling.

That is essentially what DraftKings CEO Jason Robins said in an interview with Fortune Magazine a couple of weeks back.

“It’s not this black-and-white line. There is some onus on the individual in these situations, too. But there’s a role we also have to play. We have to make sure that we’re both doing what we can to prevent it.”

“People who have gambling issues, they’re going to have a gambling issue. And the job is to help identify those people and get them the help and get them to understand they need help. … It has to be on them to decide that they want to change that behavior.”

While Robins is probably the wrong messenger (there is the not-so-small matter of trust—each side has to trust the other person has their best interest at heart), the message is correct: “I can only show you what to do. I can’t do it for you.”

If the customer isn’t ready and willing to change, it doesn’t matter what the operator does. Guardrails will be jumped, workarounds will be found, problems will persist, and fingers will be pointed in every direction.

Does anyone really think a 21+ logo is the missing piece of the puzzle that will prevent someone from gambling to the point where they carry $50,000 of revolving debt on credit cards with interest rates between 20% and 30%?

Will banning credit cards solve the problem, or will it encourage people to take cash advances (at even worse rates) or shift other purchases, such as phone and electric bills, to their credit card instead of their bank account?

Does anyone think a crisis could have been averted if this person had been pushed to set a (easily reversible) deposit limit or utilize the cool-off period feature? Or will they just change their limits or open an account at one of the other dozen sportsbooks in the market?

Those features are all well and good, but those are responsible gambling solutions to problem gambling problems. They’re a butterfly net trying to catch mosquitos.

As Kindbridge Research Institute’s Executive Director, Dr. Nathan Smith, and ROTC Program Coordinator, David Yeager, recently wrote:

“While discussing our opinions about what aspects of responsible gambling work and don’t work, we found that we each personally find responsible gambling interventions unhelpful for different reasons.

“Nate is an occasional gambler, one who bets only modest amounts a few times a year, stays well within his limits, and has never experienced harm… Because Nate does not experience gambling-related harm, responsible gambling products provide him no discernable value.

“While serving in the Army in Korea, Dave fell into a gambling addiction that lasted for many years and took an enormous financial and personal toll on him… Like Nate, he sees no personal value in responsible gambling tools.”

And here is the critical bit for the Daves of the world: