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Customers
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Customer experience
Providing an entertaining and exciting experience for all our customers is a central focus of our business. To achieve this, we want to offer our customers fun and entertainment, whilst ensuring that they play within their means. Safer gambling considerations are therefore at the forefront of our consumer engagement and embedded into everything we do.
We continue to develop our approach, utilising new technology and deepening employee awareness, to increase the sophistication of our methods of detecting at-risk play.
Safer gambling messaging
The focus on keeping our customers safe underlines everything we do at Rank. Safer gambling messaging is incorporated into our operations and communications across the Group, internally and externally and across all the brands. The objective of consistent safer gambling messaging is to maintain a strong awareness amongst customers, ensure that relevant support is signposted and easily accessible, and keep safer gambling central in the minds of our employees.
As a minimum, we operate in line with the regulatory requirements set out by the local authority in each jurisdiction. In the UK, gambling legislation is advanced and far-reaching and, as such, the measures we have in place to promote safer gambling are well-established and recognised by customers and colleagues alike. In Spain, there are fewer legislative requirements for measures to protect customers than in the UK (although the requirements that are in place are more prescriptive); nevertheless, we are committed to creating safe environments for our customers to play in, guided by the wider Group’s approach to safer gambling.
In the UK, safer gambling messaging touchpoints include, but are not limited to: a safer gambling message sent to every new customer that registers in venue or online; our standalone, dedicated safer gambling website, Keep It Fun (https://keepitfun.rank.com/); ‘360’ safer gambling messaging in all land-based venues; safer gambling notifications on all machines across the Mecca and Grosvenor estate; and appropriate signage in slot machine areas.
In our Spanish venues, safer gambling messaging can be found on all slot machines, on posters in every toilet, and on leaflets available at reception, and leaflets and posters are displayed and available in colleague areas of the venues. For Rank’s Spanish digital business, all sites feature links to safer gambling resources and support organisations, customer communications and marketing include links to our safer gambling page and the national self-exclusion scheme, and all customers that create an account with us will receive a specific communication on safer gambling.
Safer gambling tools for customers
Our safer gambling tools are designed to support customers, should they require it, in controlling their play, and are signposted clearly online and in venues. To ensure their continued efficacy, we review our existing measures, introducing new tools or updates based on player behaviour, and maintaining compliance with industry requirements.
Depending on the platform and location of our customers, there are a range of tools which customers can use. Deposit, loss, and time limits, as well as self-assessments, help customers to manage their spending and how long they have been playing. Taking an enforced break from gambling can be the preferred option for customers that are concerned that they have a problem with gambling and feel that setting limits is not sufficient. Customers can do this through our operator schemes, or through the national self-exclusion schemes in the UK and Spain. To support a customer that has self-excluded, their status will be updated automatically on our marketing system, which will suppress all communications to that customer.
Detecting at-risk customers
The majority of customers are able to enjoy exciting and entertaining experiences online and in our venues. The steps we take in educating our customers about safer gambling and providing them with the tools to play responsibly, further minimise the risk of gambling-related harm. Nevertheless, there is a very small proportion of customers that will exhibit problem gambling behaviours. As such, it is critical that we take every appropriate step to quickly identify these individuals and provide them with the support they require.
We have established clear methods by which to identify incidences of at-risk play and determine how best to intervene, whilst making sure that all other customers experience frictionless play. The approach that we take varies by business unit and by jurisdiction. Data modelling utilises information about customers to allow identification of individuals that may be at-risk of problem gambling. Monitoring play is an effective way to identify at-risk behaviours; in the UK, our Hawkeye system enables live monitoring of all digital play 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
The effectiveness of our safer gambling approach is supported by nurturing a company culture of conscientiousness and caring for our customers. Safer gambling interactions, though informed by data and monitoring, are initiated by our colleagues using their insights and personal knowledge of customers. Fostering awareness and providing employees with the requisite knowledge of safer gambling is therefore critically important.
Preventing underage play
We have a firm responsibility to prevent underage play, and to protect our customers from harm. Under-18s are forbidden from entering our venues and from playing on our online platforms and we take action if there are unlawful attempts to enter our venues. In compliance with regulation, we ensure that promotional communications are restricted to the intended audience and our advertisements never target anyone under the age of 18.
Protecting vulnerable customers
There are a number of factors which can result in customers being vulnerable, including, but not limited to, life events, changes to financial situation, struggling with addiction, and medical issues. We employ a range of measures to safeguard vulnerable customers. In the UK we set the bar higher in our marketing by not targeting promotional messages nor the products themselves towards anyone under the age of 25. Using demographic, transactional and behavioural data, and known markers of harm to assess customers, any individual that scores in the high-risk category will not receive any marketing from any of our brands.
In our Spanish venues and digital business, any person registered on the national Regulators’ Registry of ‘persons prohibited to entry in gambling establishments’ will be identified and denied entry. The data from the Registry is downloaded daily to ensure we are able to fulfil this requirement.
In our Spanish digital business, in compliance with government regulation, we set the bar higher for communications with those customers aged 25 and under. Customers aged 25 and under that register with us are therefore sent a specific message to reinforce safer gambling and all the potential harms of gambling. When a customer spends over a certain threshold, we will request information to confirm whether their level of spending is affordable.
We take proportionate and appropriate action if a vulnerable customer is identified, including discussing with customers the indicator that suggests vulnerability, signposting additional support resources, removing from marketing lists and taking action to limit or restrict access to their account. If a customer may be at immediate risk of harm, colleagues are trained to contact the police to request a welfare check.