Hi, and welcome to the Three Questions Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. And today I'm absolutely delighted to be welcoming Duncan Garvey from Betblocker.org. Hi, Duncan.
SPEAKER_00Hi, Lianne. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01Thanks very much for joining me today. I'm thrilled to have you on the show because I know you've got so much experience to share. And I really wanted to talk a little bit about this fantastic product that you've launched into the market ahead of our responsible gambling week. So tell me a little bit about Backblocker and how you've seen the industry change in your time here and what's led you to develop this fantastic new product.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I'll I'll start with the middle part of that question. Changes in the industry, I guess. Yeah. In the last 10 years almost that the POG has been running, the big changes we've we've really seen have been a sharp rise in regulatory standards. There's no two way, no two ways about this. We've seen the UKGC come in and they have changed the game. They have fundamentally. Affiliates need to be more conscious of what they are doing now. And within the UK market, certainly, and this is going to extend to other markets as other government agencies get involved. We're no longer seeing as many operators to choose from. This is true. But moving moving off that and on to bet blockers specifically, um, bet blocker hasn't really come about due to changes in the market, but more more on the back of our role um as a dispute mediation service.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Over the years, um we've seen a growing number of complaints uh related to responsible gambling, effectively. And uh being the one who's sitting at the the table dealing with these complaints, I can tell you that I have read some absolutely heartbreaking stories. Yeah. Um players who have lost everything, um, who whose families have broken down, who've lost their home, who don't know how they're gonna feed their kids next week.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that's incredibly serious. I mean, and this is why we we're talking about this now.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely with the responsible but gambling week uh on us now. Yeah, this is the time to have this conversation. And look, with with with absolute honesty, these are the extreme end of the stories, they're not all like that, but they are heartbreaking. And the truth is that the sad truth is that sometimes, even for the most heartbreaking stories, there is nothing that we could do to help them. Yeah, while the player has got themselves into a horrible situation, that doesn't necessarily mean that the operator had by default done anything wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And in numerous uh situations, we've seen the operator act as soon as soon as they realize what's going wrong. Yeah. And I couldn't do anything to help the player. And the truth, I always felt bad walking away from these cases. Yeah. Where you you you see somebody in such dire need and you can't help them. So at that point I started to look around to see what we could do for them. If we couldn't recover money for them, what else could we do?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the the obvious thought was, well, let's look at blocking softwares. Let's see if we can direct them towards something to other gam responsible gambling resources.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I started looking around and was disappointed to find that there were no free softwares to help users block gambling services on their internet capable devices. Yeah. And I was uncomfortable telling people who were already financially destitute to go away and spend money to get help. Yes. You're asking them for the one resource that they don't have.
SPEAKER_01And obviously, this is an illness. I mean, when it gets to those, you know, levels of without question. You know, it's it's it's an illness, and and people have the right to be uh treated, you know, um for addiction, and and you know, this this is why this is such an important conversation.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I um please do not take this as criticism of any of the services or tools out there just because they're charging. These things cost money, yeah. They cost money, and how how else are they gonna do it? But that that didn't answer the fundamental question for me was which was how do we provide these services to these extreme cases without without them having to pay money for it? Yeah. And so we we we came up with the idea that we would set up a service ourselves, we would fund it ourselves, develop it and and release it. And that way we could refer as many players as we liked without worrying about escalating costs for us.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's that's where uh BetBlocker started.
SPEAKER_01And how have you, I mean, have you has this been a self-funded product uh project, or have you had any involvement from operators or other industry individuals? I mean, or have you just taken this to market yourself?
SPEAKER_00This is 99.99% of us.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00We have had one operator, LNL Europe, helped to fund some of the development of the Fire OS app. Yeah. But beyond that, this has been entirely financed by the POG to date. Now, the the truth of the matter is that original plans and it it has become quite apparent that uh the POG will not be able to sustain this project by themselves long term. The customer service uh side of this is going to require hiring people in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And on that basis, we've actually just read registered BetBlocker as a charity. So we will now be looking to work more closely with the industry and with other charitable organizations in the sector to try and find funding to push this product forward now. We have thousands of users actively using the app already. Yeah. But to really push this out and to ensure it achieves its potential, it has to become its own entity entity now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think it's it's admirable that an affiliate has actually taken this step because you know affiliates do get a bad rep quite often in the industry. But you know, the thing is that you've seen the player side because you're so involved on the player side in terms of disputes and and you know customer service, you've taken this step, and I think it's it's really admirable. And I really want to thank you for sharing this story with us today.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Leanne. Um, honestly, um we've we've seen in in recent times, we've seen, I mean, really recent the last few months, we've seen cases where affiliates have been specifically targeting gambling addicts. Yeah. Actively looking for keywords to try and assist gambling addicts to get round their uh self-exclusions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I I think when when we have affiliates doing things as irresponsible, is that we need to have a spectrum, and there needs to be some something at the other end where affiliates do things to improve the industry. And I hope many more affiliates will will join us in actively, consciously trying to hit yeah, trying to um help people with addiction.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. We can help with that in terms of I'd like to call out to every single one of the affiliates that listen to our podcast, read our newsletters, come on to our website, please get in touch with um BitBlocker and and you know have a little space on your website that's dedicated to this product.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank thank you very much, Leanne. And yes, uh any affiliate that wants to talk to us, um we're always happy to talk.
SPEAKER_01And similarly, to all of the operators that are reading and listening to our podcasts and engaging with us in our affiliate community, I'd like to call you out to actually get in touch with Duncan as well and talk about how we can really support this responsible gaming initiative and you know help people with with severe problems because that's what gambling week is about. It's about raising awareness, it's about acting responsibly, um, and that's really what this discussion is about. Now, talking about responsible advertising, um, it's it really is a key focus for all eye gaming businesses, especially here in the UK. So, what sort of advice can you give to new affiliates coming into the market that aren't perhaps as experienced as what you are in terms of dealing with the end user and also you know understanding the um you know advertising code and regulations? What are some of the things that you think are happening that they should be aware of today?
SPEAKER_00Well, for any new affiliate, I I um I'm well aware of how daunting the advertising codes of practice from various regulatory entities can be to uh sift through. Yeah. Um and with more and more governments establishing their own regulatory authorities and their own standards, it is becoming more complicated. There's no question about that. But the the the things that you need, in my opinion, as a responsible affiliate, the things you really need to be doing coming in. One, make sure that the operators you're working with are correctly licensed for the jurisdiction. Um if if you are working in the UK, advertising UK licensed operators alongside unlicensed operators, that's gonna come back come back to bite you sooner or later.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I mean it's a case of not really taking the short-term view anymore because you know, as you build your business, you're gonna one day want to exit or sell. These things need to be considered from the outset as part of your infrastructure.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Your your reputation is what's going to define you. We're we're looking at a market that is consolidating rapidly. We are seeing small, especially within the UK market, we are seeing small operators drop away at a rapid rate. Yeah. This means that you, as an affiliate, have less partners to choose from, and conversely, those programs that work within the UK are going to be more picky about the affiliates that they will work with. They don't want to work with affiliates that they see as a potential risk when the regulator's throwing around fines in the millions for mispractice. No operator is wanting to take unnecessary risks. Um, so yeah, you you need to make sure you're working with licensed operators. But alongside this, um ask if you are unsure about what you are doing, talk to your partners because the affiliate teams at these licensed operators will know what's okay and what's not. Yeah, don't wait for them to call you out on something questionable. Ask beforehand rather than risking losing your affiliate account.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that really is what happens now. You know, there's no more kind of softy softy approach. If if you're stepping out of line, you are going to be caught, whether it's today, tomorrow, two minutes later. And it's just not worth it because the effort that you put into building an affiliate business, um, you need to be doing it properly.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's it's even even uh you don't even have to step out of line these days. Leanne, we've seen at the POG, we've seen um some accounts closed just because we weren't active enough. Yeah. Um there the operator has cited UK regulations. We've asked, what have we done? What what breaches have we found? And there have been none. It's just that because we were low traffic enough for that particular program, we weren't worth their time to monitor for compliance. So you're gonna need to have closer relationships with the partners you want to work with, and you're gonna need to put pay more attention to their needs. You cannot just do whatever you like to get traffic anymore.
SPEAKER_01Okay, and just quickly a last question before we close off. I just want to understand a little bit more about Bed Blocker and you know how the client uses it. So obviously, if we get affiliates involved to help to promote this on their sites, you know, is there a piece of code that they can download or how does it actually work? What's the functionality?
SPEAKER_00Well, Bed Blocker is an app. What happens is the user downloads it onto their phone or their laptop, and we've then set it so it has a range of options. Um the user most appropriately for the gambling sector is our gambling self-restriction option. So the user selects that, they then select how long they want to be restricted for and sets it. And once the app is set, once it's activated, the app blocks that device from accessing over six and a half thousand different gambling operator websites. Okay. And we we update this this every this list every day with new new operator websites as we find them. And at the end of the exclusion, um the the block is terminated and the the device can resume normal activity.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00So um at the moment we were we distribute this, the app uh for our desktop versions via our website, yeah, vetblocker.org. And for the mobile applications, we work with the Play Store, the Apple Store, and Amazon for the different platforms. And again, you can get these directly from our website. Um I'm I'm not sure how many people will be or how many of your listeners will be aware of this, but at the moment the UKGC is consulting on requiring operators to provide free licenses to this type of filtering software, which is the official term for this type of software. Um my expectation would be that the UKGC, at least within the next two years, will likely make it mandatory that all licensed operators provide um free free solutions. Yeah, free solutions at point of self-exclusion for every player. Okay. Um so the the for the operator side of the industry, get in contact with us. We are a charity, you know, your contribution ensures that we're we remain available. If Bet Blocker disappears from the market, you only have cost point alternatives.
SPEAKER_01And obviously, that the problem there with you know customers that have already run into monetary issues is that they can't afford it.
SPEAKER_00So well, it's but the the point would be that the regulator is likely to expect operators to take on the financial burden in the near future. Yeah. And so the operator, the market now has a choice between bearing that financial bar uh burden via the commercial alternatives or helping to so support Betblocker.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Either it's either it's going to cost them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but the thing is that there's a solution and it's just about spreading the word and getting everybody involved. So I'm I just I want to thank you so much for coming on today and sharing the story about why you have created this product and how it's gonna you know help the market to become a little bit more um you know easy for customers that have addiction problems to you know access free help, which is obviously incredibly important, but also for sharing your knowledge in terms of why affiliates need to be you know coming on board and not ignoring this problem. Um so I really just want to thank you for that and for sharing your experience with us. And I'm looking forward to seeing how this product gets moved forward in in the industry in in a much bigger way. Um so I'm gonna say thank you very much for joining me.
SPEAKER_00It's been an absolute pleasure, Leon.