GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 13 - June 2010

is a successful part, technology has empoweredconsumers inaway thateven 10 years ago would have been hard to imagine. Governments that ignore what their citizens want will have to adjust their thinking. Consumers are the most important part of the industry and yet tend to be the most readily overlooked when policies are being developed by governments. In terms of spending they can and do vote with their feet, and the first real generations of Internet shoppers will boost e-commerce spending as a whole, and theonlinegambling industry iswell- placed to ride thatwave. Growth will come from the continued supply of excellent gambling products that meet that demand. There aremany jurisdictions where legal restrictions prevent the most effective promotion of online gambling products and companies.Asagreaterbodyof evidence emerges which demonstrates that online gambling is not some terrible evil that makes problem gambling rates go through the roof, regulators will struggle to objectively justify these kinds of advertising hurdles. However, online consumers do have the freedom to circumvent these barriers, and if they want online gambling products they will seek themout. The continued strengthof the U.S. online gamblingmarket should beproof enoughof that. Gambling is a regulated activity just about everywhere and there is no real prospect of that changing, but what we shouldbeable topredict safely is that, as relationships arebuilt and growbetween the industry and regulators, more pragmatic regimeswill evolve. Therewill always be a healthy tension between the two, but asmore regulatorsgainaproper understanding of how the industry works and the huge range of tools that companies utilize to underpin effective regulation, they will gain the confidence to relax the reinsof control. Fear of the unknown is common everywhere.Formanypeople inpositions of influence combining the Internet and gambling is a match made in hell. It ignites the prejudices and fears of lots of people, and we ignore that at our peril. The answer to that is to become known ratherthanunknown;topresentahuman face; to inform in a nonthreateningway. That takes time, andwe are still a young industry with an undeserved reputation that too often precedes us. But my prediction is thatwithmore timewewill be seen as responsible partners and, as a British politician said of the British gambling industry a few years ago, we can move from the shady side of the streetandbeacceptedasaveryreputable industrywithhigh standards. Whenthathappens,otherbusinesssectors and their shareholders will also become more comfortable with the concept of white-labeling and joint ventures. Again it issurelyonlyamatterof timebeforewe see theGoogles, FacebooksandTescosof thisworldwith their ownbrandedonline gambling suites. 5. The convergenceof technologies. At themoment it is common practice to differentiate among online gambling, mobile gambling and interactive gambling. Those demarcations are a result of the technology that we began with a few years ago and reflect the differing limitations of the respective delivery systems. Those differences will be largely eroded as societies move to having single devices that are both portable and capable of providing their entertainment, information and audiovisual needs. The rapid rollout of iPods, Blackberries, laptops and multi- function mobile phones points to the way ahead. It canonlybepositive for the remotegambling industry. 6.The industrywillhave tograpple with shortages of skilled staff. Thankfully, there are many parts of our business where people with transferable skills can quickly slot in. But attracting good people from other sectors and letting them settle in can take time, and every time a business expands or new markets open the thinner that existing experience is spread. Some companies arealreadyaddressing this through long- termstrategicplanning—forinstancewith in-house training programs for software specialists—but it is easy to see a more structured approach being adopted with a greater degree of succession planning built into companyorganizations. 7. Inmany jurisdictions, the intro- duction of sportsbooks will be the thin end of the online gambling wedge. The very notable exception to this is the USA, where there is almost paranoia in some quarters about sports betting (with the exception of horserac- ing). This is at best strange given that half thecountryseems tohaveno trouble gettingabet downon theSuperBowl ev- ery year, but unless the huge sports lob- by changes its position dramatically any new licensedmarket in the USA will be restricted to online poker and hopefully online casinos. 8.Mynext prediction is a very safe one: sports leagueswill fight tooth andnail toextract higher revenues from sportsbooks. This might be through statutory levies, new IP rights, commercial deals or a combination of all three, but the resentment felt against betting operators by a wide range of sporting authorities is hard to underestimate. Sports are traditionally given a sympathetic ear by governments in a way that we can only dream about. Theywill stoke the fireswith ill-founded tales of corruption and betting-related match fixing. This strategyplays to every stereotyped view that politicians and othershaveof thegambling industryand will be used by sports to seek control of the types of bets that canbe offered and, as they put it, to secure a “fair return” for theuseof their products. TheEUwill be themain battleground, and it will get messy. One final prediction? Serbia at 66/1 for theWorldCup. ClivehasbeenChief Executiveof the Remote Gambling Association since 2004. Before that he spent six years asapolicyadvisor to theBritishGov- ernmentongambling issuesandear- lier in his career worked for several years in thebetting industry. 32 Gazing into the Crystal Ball