Bacta launches Social Responsibility Exchange

The UK gaming hall trade association says the initiative will give customer-facing staff practical guidance on safer gambling measures.

UK.- The gaming hall trade association Bacta has launched its Social Responsibility (SR) Exchange. The initiative is intended to provide customer-facing staff with practical guidance on delivering a safer gambling experience. The exchange forms part of Bacta’s new commitment to increase collaboration, training and knowledge sharing among members.

The first SR Exchange will be held in Birmingham on October 31. Training will focus on safer gambling engagements and interventions with customers at gaming venues. Bacta says it will allow employers in the sector to share lived experience of engaging with gaming machine players.

The event takes place shortly before Safer Gambling Week, which runs from November 13 to 19 and is supported by Bacta along with the Betting and Gaming Council, the Lotteries Council and the Bingo Association.

Bacta chief executive John White said: “We are very aware of the need to complement the academic work on safer gambling. To meet this need the SR Exchange provides ‘Real Insights delivered by Real People’ and has been designed to provide those attending with a tool kit of practical measures that they can share with colleagues and continue the industry’s outstanding commitment to safer gambling.”

Earlier this year White told British MPs that gaming venues were being “unfairly treated” by the banking sector. Giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, he said Bacta members had experienced having services withdrawn “at short notice”.

White told the committee headed by Conservative Party MP Harriett Baldwin: “We want to confirm that a number of our members have had their banking facilities suddenly and unexpectedly removed. The reasons given are that the banks consider gambling, even low stake low prize activities such as ours, as a money laundering risk – which is nothing short of preposterous.”

Bacta has also called for the government to ease requirements for foreign workers to help correct the shortage of workers at gaming venues.