Responsible gambling (RG) is more than a catch-phrase today. It’s a layered world of its own, which may as well make or break the gambling industry as we know it. RG has become a critical pillar of not just sustainable industry practice, but the very prerequisite for running a forward-looking business in 2025, and beyond.

Therefore, stakeholders, operators, and regulators, have all invested heavily in better understanding what responsible gambling entails, and how it can help underpin what are ultimately commercially-minded ventures. As public and regulatory scrutiny has increased, I will argue that responsible gambling is a must focus of business efforts.

There are numerous cases to fully illustrate the significant risk associated with a lack of compliance, both from a societal and business standpoint, with penalties issued against offenders who have fallen short of RG and AML rules, often in the hopes of a quick profit, only to end up teetering on collapse. Just ask Star Entertainment and Crown Resorts, or take a look at the most recent flurry of penalties issued in Sweden.

1. Beyond the fallacy: RG as it is meant to be

The first issue of the day is to understand one of the plainest truths – the public does not support gambling as a rule of thumb. All public polls point to the same thing: limitations on gambling advertisement, stricter controls, higher taxes, and all.

This negative sentiment is understandable, and I am not going to go at length now to discuss how limiting the regulated market would end up exacerbating gambling-related problems, primarily caused by the offshore market, as I have already argued this point before.

However, I would like to bring up the following point: RG cannot be used as a sort of whitewashing tool, to help burnish the industry’s credentials that is. We have, as it turns out, lost in the court of public opinion. This, though, does not mean that responsible gambling efforts ought not to continue.

We have seen an array of genuine initiatives, including RG tools, groundbreaking research, training individuals and professionals, and the use of cutting-edge technology. Casino Guru has participated in all of these developments, through its Casino Guru Academy and partnership with world-beating companies such as Mindway AI.

So, to sum up, RG must be taken as a core ingredient of industry success, and as something that must not be tangled in the debate as to whether gambling is moral or ethical. Responsible gambling initiatives should be focused narrowly on tangible and evidence-based results.

The irony is that we as an industry needed a strong regulatory jolt to finally realize this ourselves and tended to use RG as a sort of a given – tuck it away somewhere on the website’s page, and people will (probably) find their own way. Well, this is not really the case anymore.

2. The role of AI in all of this – the double-edged sword we all talk about

I recently came across a study by Nasim Binesh, Ph.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor in the UF College of Health & Human Performance’s Department of Tourism, Hospitality & Event Management, who co-authored the study with Kasra Ghaharian, Ph.D., the director of research for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas International Gaming Institute.

Essentially, the authors argued that if left unchecked, AI will be misused by the gambling sector to help optimize profits by targeting vulnerable players. This is certainly a risk and it calls into focus the need for fundamental and ethical guidelines for the use of AI by gambling ventures. Some of the points raised by the authors included suggestions such as:

1. Independent audits to assess AI systems for ethical compliance;
2. Training AI developers to better understand the do’s and don’ts when working with at-risk populations;
3. Informing players about how their data is collected and used by gambling businesses;
4. Making sure that AI decisions are easily understood by players as well.

There are all excellent points, and I think that any attempt at gambling (re)regulation should have these front and center (other than how to make the regulated market to out-compete the offshore market).

I am pleased that the authors have seen room to also be cautiously optimistic, arguing as well that AI can similarly be used to help identify early signs of addiction and prevent them.

Mindway AI, a cutting-edge data and tech company that uses psychological analysis and AI to identify such markers, has been particularly successful in helping operators identify at risk-players and limit their play.

3. Personalization and early prevention

In 2025 and beyond, the focus should clearly be on personalizing everything a gambler sees and does at a casino. While the technology to achieve that was once beyond our reach, the advance of artificial intelligence has really upended the field.

With regards to responsible gambling, and specifically – player protection – the keywords should be personalization and early prevention. By personalizing messages to reflect, for example, how much a player has spent and is issued with frequent reminders, casinos may gently prod and encourage players to remain within reasonable amounts of spending.

Of course, I realize that discretionary spending is for each individual to do with as they please and trying to police how much money is "reasonable" is another pitfall the industry has to address without alienating consumers or, worse, driving them offshore.

But apart from this off-hand approach that relies more on prompts and good advice, we need a tailored prevention strategy that sets robust guardrails that trigger when a mere good word fails to.

These guardrails could include customizable deposit limits, mandatory cooling-off periods, or automated risk alerts based on behavioral patterns, but all of this needs to be done in a way, as I mentioned, that does not end up alienating players or diminishing the value of the experience in the regulated market. The industry should try to avoid at all costs creating an association between responsible gambling and a negative experience, which is a lot of what the current dialogue is focused on.

The goal isn’t to restrict enjoyment but to create a safety net that catches problematic play early. Prevention should feel seamless because, as I have argued before, players do not care if your offer is legal or illegal if they are already registered and having fun. At least they do not care if they are not given the time to stop and think, and such reflection, when caught mid-gaming, is very rare and an unreliable predictor of responsible behavior when gambling.

In other words, we need an invisible but effective framework that supports players’ well-being without disrupting their experience. When done right, this proactive approach becomes a natural extension of the entertainment journey, not a barrier or something to raise negative connotations with.

4. Evidence-based research and why it matters

I think one of the biggest advances we as an industry have made is understanding that rolling out just any tool or campaign means very little until we have examined the efficacy of these tools. This is why I mentioned RG tools that are implemented in website pages, but the operators behind them are hardly tracking how effective they are.

This is where evidence-based research comes in, and as I have mentioned already, the industry has become more open to it in the face of stiff regulation that has decided to do things its way. Essentially, the industry is trying to help regulators craft policies that do not alienate players and push them offshore.

While there is a clear self-preservation instinct in all of this, the truth is that evidence-based research should underpin policy (as well as the use of AI) and how RG tools are implemented.

Luckily for consumers and lawmakers, the research produced is crafted by a body of academics who are genuinely interested in what makes sense and actually works in limiting gambling-related harms, much like in Professor Binesh’s case.

5. The role of regulators in all of this

I have repeatedly argued that regulation is a huge part of any meaningful change in the industry, and without the custodians who oversee the industry, business ventures are prone to make decisions that benefit them.

There is nothing scandalous or shocking about this. Then comes the delayed over-regulation, which vows to make gambling safer all at once, and make up for all the years of regulatory limbo. Unfortunately, I do not think this is how things work.

Overcompensation is often a symptom of lawmakers being unwilling to work more closely with industry stakeholders. Why? Because being seen as too friendly to the sector is hardly good for one’s political career, if I may be allowed to be a touch cynical here.

Yet, this need not be the case. As we have seen in the case of AI, the best way to ensure that this technology will be used to address and lessen the adverse impact of excessive gambling, is to codify how the technology is used by industry.

But go a step too far – or do too little too late - and you have just ended up empowering entities that operate offshore and are hardly interested in complying with the full extent of the law, if at all.

Wrapping up: RG should be the hydrogen of the gambling industry

Just as our universe is primarily made of hydrogen atoms, responsible gambling (RG) should be the foundational element of the gambling industry. In 2025 and beyond, our collective efforts must move well beyond mere compliance.

Policy development, product design, and customer engagement should all align with a singular goal: making gambling safer. Gambling is, by nature, an addictive activity, and even under ideal conditions, individuals will be vulnerable to harm.

That reality places a clear obligation on the industry: to move beyond performative gestures and focus on implementing solutions that genuinely work.

Mentalhealthsupport, earlyintervention, ethical product design, and effective prevention strategies must be seen not as something to be pursued separately, but rather as interconnected elements of a broader responsible gambling ecosystem that achieves its designated goals.

Only when taken together can these efforts meaningfully reduce harm.

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