You Need To Break A Few Eggs

The gambling industry is in a period of rapid innovation, which history tells us will be followed by a period of reining in the industry's excesses.

My go-to person in the responsible gambling universe is Jamie Salsburg, who coined the term Jamietopia, outlining his vision for a well-functioning, legal, and regulated online gambling industry from a responsible gambling perspective.

I can also be hypercritical (about responsible gaming, but also online gambling in general) and have a vision of Stevetopia that I would like to see happen in the realm of online gambling policy.

One thing I’ve realized is that this is a dream. It’s not going to happen, as we (the gambling industry) are destined to repeat the following cycle: There’s some form of innovation, laissez-faire policies are hurriedly introduced, blowback, and then overcorrection, and maybe at some point in the distant future, we have a mix of nonsensical and sound policies.

It’s the way the world works in general.

The Automobile

The automobile industry’s timeline below illustrates this perfectly: Rapid innovation followed by the need to rein in excesses.

The dawn of the automobile era in the early 20th century saw a laissez-faire approach, with minimal regulation allowing rapid innovation and market growth. The repeal of earlier restrictive laws (that didn’t fit well with the automobile), Ford’s assembly line, and the lack of standardized regulations allowed a free-for-all in vehicle design and production, fostering innovation but also inconsistency and safety risks.

The era also brought about the first hints of coming regulation, with some cities imposing speed limits and basic traffic rules due to rising accidents, but enforcement was weak.

Between 1920 and 1960, we began to see the first widespread attempts at broader regulation:

• The US Federal Aid Highway Act (1921) required states to comply with various federal provisions and standards to receive funding.

• State regulations begin standardizing roads and traffic laws.

• Early voluntary or anchorage mandates for seat belts were adopted, but their implementation was slow.

By the 1960s, unchecked growth led to safety and environmental concerns, prompting governments to respond with stricter regulations to address public harm.

• 1965: Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed exposes design flaws in cars like the Chevrolet Corvair, prompting public outcry.

• 1966: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) mandates safety features like seat belts, airbags (1970s), and crash standards.

• 1966: The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act makes seat belts mandatory equipment in all new passenger vehicles starting in 1968; states would later pass laws requiring seat belt usage in the 1980s.

• 1970s-1980s: The Clean Air Act (1970) and EPA regulations enforced emissions standards, forcing the use of catalytic converters and fuel injection systems.

Today, we see strict safety and environmental regulations (a push to zero emissions) curbing the industry’s earlier freedom. That has increased production costs but reduced fatalities (from 5.3 deaths per 100 million miles in 1965 to 1.1 by 2019).

This is where the online gambling industry is headed, in my opinion. Not packing as much horsepower into an engine as possible, but balancing performance with safety, and having clear regulations in place.