The South Australian Centre for Economic Studies has carried out a research for the Independent Gambling Authority, the South Australian gambling regulator responsible for monitoring and control on casinos, gaming machines, sports betting and commercial lotteries. The study was especially aimed to check on the automatic alerts which are activated after players had spent several hours gaming.
As reported by The Advertiser, the study was especially focused on the timing and response rate of such alerts in the period from 2015 to the first three months of 2017.
According to the research, local problem gamblers used some imperfections of the system which is meant to prevent them from sitting at Adelaide Casino’s gaming machines for hours. Even more concerning was the fact that the casino staff left unattended players who showed signs of high-risk gambling behaviour, after automatic alerts were triggered. Some of these players were left to still play the machines after even eight hours of continuous play.
The results of the survey have provoked some concerns as the number of gambling addicts and people put at risk of becoming ones has been rising over the last few years. The spreading problem gambling has resulted in special measures to be taken up to tackle gambling-related harm. In January 2014, the Adelaide Casino was made to implement the so-called Automated Risk Monitoring system plus an additional commitment program as part of an agreement under which the casino was officially given a permission to offer cashless gambling services.
As The Advertiser revealed, Associate Professor Michael O’Neil who is a co-author of the report shared that there was an improvement marked in the response rate after the Adelaide Casino staff got used to the new system implemented there. He further reminded that for the time being no other casino on the territory of the country features such a response system to deal with problem gambling behaviour.
Problem Gamblers Left Unattended by Casino Staff
According to the review findings, Adelaide Casino staff left players unattended after a considerable number of alerts were triggered for players who spent at least four hours playing the machines. The same happened with some of the eight-hour alerts.
In addition, about 200 players who activated alerts about four-hour play at the time when the research was carried out in 2015 were left to continue playing by the casino’s staff. The system failed to record some responses, if any, at the time. According to the researchers, there was a chance that the number of failed responses is larger than the afore-mentioned number because of the fact that the alerts were responded by double counting staff.
In its study, the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies revealed that time to respond to four-hour alerts at the Adelaide Casino varied from several minutes to over two hours. For the time being, the casino staff is supposed to respond to such alerts within 15 minutes after an alert is triggered.
As far as six- and eight-hour alerts are concerned, the study found that 125 people who activated six-hour alerts in 2016 and 10 players who activated eight-hour alerts over the first three months of 2017 were left unattended by Adelaide Casino staff or there was not a record of any interaction into the system.
- Author
Daniel Williams
