Safer Gambling Commitments

Commitment

Key actions and commitments

COMMITMENT I:

Education: £10.5m for youth education programme with aim of educating every 11-19-year-old in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (in association with GamCare and the Young Gamers and Gamblers Education Trust (YGAM).

Ad tech: Delivery of 6th edition of IGRG code, which included measures to better protect children from gambling advertising online through advertising technology (ad tech).

Protection of young people: High-Value Customer (HVC) Code of Conduct restricting under-25s, implemented and incorporated into Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP).

Preventing underage gambling and protecting young people
We are determined to do everything in our power to prevent underage gambling and protect young people who gamble online.

COMMITMENT II:

RPT (Research, Prevention and Treatment, previously called RET) funding: In 2019, William Hill together with the other major operators committed to increase funding for research, education and treatment from 0.1% of UK gross gambling yield (GGY) to 1% over four years. This takes our contribution from c.£1m in 2019 to c.£10m in 2023, with an estimated cumulative spend across the participating operators of c.£100m over the period, to achieve a fourfold increase in treatment provision.

Increasing support for treatment of gambling harm
We will support the vital process of increasing access to treatment for those that need it and have committed to work constructively with national stakeholders and experts as they undertake an essential and comprehensive needs assessment.

COMMITMENT III:

6th edition of IGRG code, including updates: Areas addressed include ad tech, negative keyword lists, social media age-gating, search responsibilities for operators and consistency in rules for affiliates.

Review of effectiveness of ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban on advertising: Commissioned independent research that showed the voluntary ban reduced the amount of TV gambling ads seen by 4-17-year-olds by 97%. (Overall, the volume of gambling television ads viewed by young people fell by 70% over the full duration of live sport programmes.)

Strengthening and expanding codes of practice for advertising and marketing
We want to ensure our industry adheres to robust advertising and marketing standards, addressing concern around sports sponsorship, and television and online advertising.

COMMITMENT IV:

Game Design Code of Conduct: William Hill actively contributed to the development of the code and implemented the measures set out in Phase 1 in September 2020.

Data-sharing and single customer view: William Hill has actively contributed to ongoing work exploring how information can be shared to protect vulnerable people, while ensuring that rigorous privacy controls are in place.

Improve self-exclusion schemes: ongoing improvements to Multi Operator Self Exclusion Scheme (MOSES) and GAMSTOP.

Protecting and empowering our customers
We will empower our customers to gamble safely through innovative products and tools that enable them to stay in control. Through continuous innovation, we are determined to find solutions, create easy-to-use safer gambling tools, protect financially vulnerable customers and create more consistent approaches to risk management.

COMMITMENT V:

Ongoing focus on continuous improvement of training, policies and procedures and the associated awareness, understanding and support of our colleagues (93.3% of colleagues have completed the safer gambling e-learning module), which is refreshed annually as part of the compliance calendar.

2020 was the last year of the 3-year 2018 LTIP with 20% based on sustainability measures, and prior to cancellation, the 2020 bonus plans was the second year where the 15% sustainability scorecard was utilised, having been introduced in 2019.

Creating a culture of safer gambling
We want safer gambling to be the norm. We will examine our own conduct and values and consider what we can do to encourage safer gambling in our culture.