What gambling can learn from the fintech industry

On 8th December last year, UK Gambling Minister Chris Philp addressed the GambleAware conference in London. Within a speech challenging the industry around the question of affordability, the following passage stood out as being particularly interesting to me:

“We know data sharing is well established in financial services. I know there are representatives from industry in the audience today, so I want to be clear in my message; now is the time for you to pick up the gauntlet and work closely with both regulators to develop a system that works.”

As someone originally from a fintech background, those words resonated with me. I think the Minister was touching on something that has also struck me over the past year with ClearStake, namely a lack of confidence in the gambling industry when it comes to the possibilities and potential of financial data sharing.

To put that in plainer English, we frequently come across the belief that customers just won’t share their financial data, and that attempting to make it happen will inevitably lead to significant levels of churn - some of it to the black market. 

A decent summary of this position was provided by Micheal Dugher, Chief Executive of the Betting and Gaming Council, who in summarising recent research suggested that:

“punters will simply move to the unsafe, unregulated black market online if blanket enhanced spending checks are introduced”

Although this opinion is entirely understandable, it is also an almost perfect example of what some (only some) in the industry are gu