UN General Assembly engagement approaching for EPIC CEO Paul Buck
Paul Buck, CEO and founder of EPIC Global Solutions, will help to shape universal approaches to gambling harm prevention on arguably the company’s most high-profile platform to date, as he prepares for a guest speaker role at Tuesday’s Better Gambling Forum in New York, part of the 80th United Nations General Assembly.
Hosted at the Hard Rock Hotel in Manhattan, close to the UN’s official headquarters, the September 23 event is an initiative of the Brain Capital Alliance at the UN Brain Economy Summit and seeks to better player protection worldwide, prompting ongoing discussion on safer gambling policies that are suitable for a modern, digitised world.
Speaking during a workshop entitled ‘Prevention First – Literacy, Choice, and Detection’, the EPIC CEO will be joined by Dean Hestermann of Caesars Entertainment Inc, Jamie Wiebe from Crown Resorts, and a close associate of our organisation, Mindway AI’s Rasmus Kjaergaard. The group will address the proposed Responsible Gambling Triple-P (RG3P) Framework pillars of ‘Education, Informed Choice & Harm Prevention’ and ‘Risk Detection & Intervention’.
Developed by the Better Gambling Forum from a global review of existing standards and regulatory models, RG3P is a living tool designed to prompt dialogue, and as such, Paul’s panel will explore universal and targeted approaches to prevention across digital and land-based settings.
It will also look to define scalable practices and policies that reduce harm at the earliest point possible, with proposals from the various panels being debated in workshop format by an audience of around 100 influential executives from gambling-related sectors around the world, eventually leading to the consolidation of the RG3P framework and recommendations.
We took time out with Paul to ask what he hopes the event will achieve, who will be the target audience of its messages, and what EPIC propose to bring to the discussion…
Coming just a couple of months after we were involved in promoting globally-suitable prevention ideas as part of a Brain Economy Summit connected to the G7 Summit in Canada, how did this opportunity to lead the discussion on worldwide player protection come about?
It’s being driven by the same collective, but with an even higher profile than the G7 event. We’ve been invited by the organisers, in recognition of the influence we have in leading the prevention of gambling-related harm, and the reputation we’ve built up in the US in particular, through proven impact and results with high profile partners.
The aim is for us to be thought-provokers for an invited audience of around 100 guests who all have roles around the world that allow them to influence gambling policy. They’ll be encouraged to interrogate our thoughts, ask questions, and look to come up with their own conclusions on preventing gambling-related harm.
The RG3P Framework is an interesting concept… how important is it that harm prevention experts like EPIC – and our partners at Mindway AI – are at the forefront of the discussion on how this can potentially be adopted as a best practice guide for regulators and operators to follow around the world?
We’re there to share our expertise not only in education and awareness, but also harm prevention and risk detection, where products like our Interactions Masterclass focus on RG3P pillars like risk detection and intervention or interaction. There’s overlap with Mindway AI in areas like that, where they provide AI-led technology intervention based on player behaviour, compared to our much more human approach on how to identify and interact effectively, person-to-person, so we can talk about how those complementary approaches work together.
The new framework hasn’t been widely available prior to this event, but there are going to be some big hitters in the room there to discuss how it could work, so we trust that our contribution will provoke some very interesting new discussion on how it could all come together as a guide to use around the world.
Thinking of the key messages that you’re looking to share in New York, what are EPIC already doing that we feel should be adopted as a best practice model across the world?
I’m going to be presenting a visual and fast-paced version of my story as an extreme but not isolated example of why education, awareness and prevention need to be implemented everywhere that gambling takes place, making this a real issue rather than a theoretical problem for the audience.
From there, I want to make two key points that align with how EPIC operate. The first is that responsible gaming (RG) and prevention needs to be given absolutely the same – if not more – focus than treatment, because what’s the point in pulling people out of the river when you could stop them falling into it upstream in the first place? Financially, politically, and on a human level, it’s an oversight not to approach it that way, otherwise it costs more money and it creates more harm.
The other point is to make sure that lived experience is involved in every single part of that story, because it’s a very illogical addiction. With drugs, alcohol, or smoking, you can understand why people become addicted to it because you’re putting a substance into your body and you become reliant on it, whereas gambling is such a behavioural and psychological addiction.
Why can 97% of people do it, stay in control, and use it as an entertainment or pleasurable pursuit, but two or three percent really get into some serious problems around relationships, finances, crime, mental health, and so on? Academia plays a part in understanding it, but who better to explain it than those people who have been through all that and come out the other side? They’re such an important voice when it comes to any kind of policy-making because they understand it more than anybody else.
Our global reach – having worked in every continent, with a particular emphasis on the European and North American markets – has increased considerably in recent years. With the recent platforms we’ve been given to try and influence thinking at a senior level, has this year felt like a period where we’ve cemented our position as a true global leader in the area of harm prevention?
I think we are now seen as a global leader in the prevention of gambling harm. We’re well established in the US and UK, but now we’re regularly having these conversations or delivering our services in places like the UAE, Brazil, Canada, Ireland and so many others that we’ve visited many times this year.
I think that these requests to speak at events like the G7 Brain Economy Summit and the invitation from the Brain Capital Alliance at the UN Brain Economy Summit are a sign of our growth and a welcome recognition of the demand for our expertise.
What’s the one key takeaway action that you’d like attendees of the Better Gambling Forum to act upon when they return to work following this UN General Assembly event?
I just want them to look at it from a different perspective. Prevention is sometimes just seen as a ‘nice-to-have’, or something that’s going to suck away the profit of an organisation. I would turn it around to say that RG or prevention of harm is absolutely the number one most critical thing to underpin a sustainable regulated gambling industry, either in a mature market or in a newly licenced or regulated one, because by undertaking RG and reducing harm, you’re far less likely to push people over to the unregulated black market where harm is more likely to go undetected.
It’s actually a much more prudent financial model, cultural model, ethical model and people model than accepting that 3% of the population are going to get into serious issues with this and we’ll then try and fix them.
Often the harm is disproportionate, so that would be my hope for changing mindsets: getting the audience to turn the telescope around on RG and see that harm prevention is actually an integral part to a sustainable and successful industry.
Remember to return to our platforms following the event to hear reaction from the EPIC Global Solutions team in the aftermath of the Better Gambling Forum.
