Elizabeth: [00:00:00] Welcome to Before the Bet, a podcast exploring the technology, trends, culture, and industry forces shaping modern gambling. Before we get started, a quick note. Before the Bet is a forum for open, honest, and curious conversations about modern gambling. The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed by the host, guests, or participants are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policies, positions, or opinions of NYCOSA Behavioral Health Services, its funders, sponsors, or affiliated organizations.

Our goal is to explore different perspectives and encourage thoughtful conversations, so we invite you to listen with an open mind Welcome to our first episode of Before the Bet. I’m your host, Liz Thelen, and today we’re going to be talking about responsible gambling. What is responsible gambling? What [00:01:00] are responsible gambling tools, and what are they for?

Who are they for? And do they work? We’ll be talking to industry partners about what they are doing to try to promote a safer relationship to their product. Let’s get this important conversation started, and don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe.

liz (01:17)
Welcome to Before the Bet: The Tech, Trends, and Culture Behind Modern Gambling. This is our first episode, and we have a very important topic, which is responsible gambling.

liz (01:28)
And we have two incredible guests today that I cannot wait to talk to. And our first is Becca Vicetal with the Illinois Lottery. And we also have Ivan Fernandez with the Illinois Gaming Machine Operators. So can’t wait to get started. let’s start with you, Becca. Could you quickly introduce yourself?

Becca Vicetal (01:45)
Hi, I’m Becca Vicketall. I’m the senior corporate social responsibility specialist at Allwyn North America, which is the private manager of the Illinois Lottery. so I help manage the Illinois Lotteries Responsible Gaming Program. I’ve held this role for a little over three years now, and I’m very passionate about player protection and creating a safer experience for our lottery players. I’m very excited to join you today.

liz (02:14)
Wonderful. It sounds like your role encompasses a lot. and you know, just the term responsible gambling and you say responsible gaming, and I know there’s just terminology differences. What does that, you know, mean? What does that even mean?

Becca Vicetal (02:28)
So yeah, so when we talk about responsible gambling at the Illinois lottery, it means making sure that the lottery remains what it’s intended to be. So fun, entertaining, and played responsibly. so our goal is to responsibly grow lottery sales while

Becca Vicetal (02:46)
maximizing the economic benefits for the state of Illinois. so a crucial part of that is by encouraging a healthy approach to playing our games. So you’ve probably heard me say this before, but we want a lot of players playing a little,

Becca Vicetal (03:00)
Not a few players playing a lot. So responsible gambling is also something that we build into our day to day operations. So we develop and offer new products, and we’re thinking about how to balance between entertainment and a responsible level of risk. We want our players to have a positive experience and view the lottery as a fun form of entertainment, not just as a way to solve financial problems. And just as importantly, we want

Becca Vicetal (03:30)
make sure players know that help is available if gambling ever stops.

Becca Vicetal (03:34)
Being fun or starts to become a problem. So that’s why we provide access to information and resources for people who may need support. So yeah, ultimately responsible gambling is about creating a lottery environment where people can enjoy playing, they understand their limits, and have the tools and resources needed to make informed, responsible choices.

liz (04:00)
Okay,

liz (04:00)
I like that. And so we can get into terminology and I think we could do a whole episode on what we call things. And even the term responsible

Becca Vicetal (04:07)
yeah.

liz (04:09)
gambling, I feel like for some people can have them not hearing what needs to be heard, having them not recognizing the tools that could be available to them. They might

Becca Vicetal (04:21)
Mm-hmm.

liz (04:21)
say, Well, I’m responsible, I pay my bills, so I don’t need to hear that. These are things that everybody needs to know about. What are the strategies? What are the tools?

liz (04:29)
And that word informed, I think, is so important. You know, making

Becca Vicetal (04:33)
Mm-hmm.

liz (04:33)
informed decisions and intentional decisions, I think, is a big part. And it sounds like the lottery has created a lot of materials and programs to try to get that information into the hands of the players. So I know that I’ve each year been really interested in the findings of an annual.

liz (04:55)
survey that you all do. can you tell us a little bit about that and what are some of the highlights for our listeners?

Becca Vicetal (05:02)
Yeah, so the Illinois Lottery, we create and publish a responsible gaming report every year, and this report provides an overview of our responsible gaming program initiatives. it highlights some of our new efforts and goals that we’re working towards, but it also includes a snapshot of key metrics and research findings. so anyone who’s interested in reading our annual reports, they are available.

Becca Vicetal (05:28)
On our responsible play web pages, on our website.

Becca Vicetal (05:31)
But yeah, one of the first findings I wanted to highlight comes from our most recent positive play study.

Becca Vicetal (05:37)
so every two years, the Illinois Lottery Commissions this study with Gamres Limited.

Becca Vicetal (05:44)
They are a Canadian-based provider of international research and consultancy services. So the main goal of the study is to really understand the extent to which people who play Illinois lottery games have positive play beliefs and engage in positive play behaviors. So participants of this study are scored using what’s called the positive play scale.

Becca Vicetal (06:10)
so that looks at four key subscales or areas of responsible play that research has shown are important for the player’s perspective. those four areas are

Becca Vicetal (06:24)
personal responsibility, gambling literacy, honesty and control, and pre-commitment. so when we take a look

Becca Vicetal (06:31)
At the results from our most recent positive play study in 2024, we found that most respondents who gamble in Illinois hold positive play beliefs and engage in positive play behaviors. However, there was one area though that stood out, which is gambling literacy. So this is about whether players have an accurate understanding of how gambling works and the nature of gambling and odds of winning.

Becca Vicetal (06:59)
so we’ve continued to see a decline in gambling literacy among our players, especially younger players. so Gamres they suggested that this may be in part to an increase in online sports gambling with other gaming companies other than the Illinois lottery. but we have continued to explore some new initiatives focused on improving gambling literacy, especially for our younger players. So

Becca Vicetal (07:28)
we’ve had targeted messaging and we’ve ran a whole RG educational campaign through our digital channels to help promote

liz (07:36)
Mm.

Becca Vicetal (07:37)
responsible gambling behaviors earlier in life.

liz (07:40)
I think that’s really important and your finding about that lower gambling literacy, particularly among people who engage in online sports betting. I know that part of your survey is to poll people and what other types of gambling they might be involved in. It’s an important finding and just in research, that’s why we want to do research. Where’s the deficit? Where’s the need and then speak to that and so having some of these educational programs to beef up that gambling literacy is really important.

liz (08:09)
and then go ahead.

Becca Vicetal (08:09)
Yeah, we well

Becca Vicetal (08:13)
no that goes into something I wanted to share. We have another finding from this positive play study. and it

liz (08:18)
Mm-hmm.

Becca Vicetal (08:19)
was really interesting because there was a difference between people who only play Illinois lottery games and people who participate in a broader range of gambling activities.

liz (08:29)
Mm.

Becca Vicetal (08:30)
so the respondents who only reported playing Illinois lottery games, they received significantly higher positive play scores.

Becca Vicetal (08:38)
than those who play a wide array of gambling games, including online gambling with other gaming companies. so that is, you know, very reassuring that our positive play efforts are working. and we’ve identified that area that we need to improve, which is gambling literacy, and have started working to address it. but we’re doing another positive play study at the end of this year and hopefully we’ll

Becca Vicetal (09:05)
You know, see some improvement in that area.

liz (09:07)
Right, move the needle. And and and that really echoes something that I’ve seen in other research. When we look at people who gamble, the more types of gambling that they tend to do, they tend to have higher risk levels. So when people are kind of maybe zeroing in on one thing that they’re really interested and excited about and have the information about that

Becca Vicetal (09:28)
Mm-hmm.

liz (09:29)
and how to do it more safely, hopefully the outcomes are better.

liz (09:34)
so there was something else that was really interesting that we had talked about was a pilot that you have for player behavior

Becca Vicetal (09:42)
Mm.

liz (09:43)
monitoring. Can you tell us about that?

Becca Vicetal (09:45)
I would love to. So last month we launched a pilot project focused on monitoring online player behavior. So the goal of the pilot is to continue evaluating our own internal capabilities around identifying and monitoring our online players who may be exhibiting signs of potential risky gambling behavior, and then around supporting targeted interaction for these at-risk players.

Becca Vicetal (10:15)
So we first worked with international safer gambling experts, and we established a set of what we call markers of harm criteria to help us identify the online players that may be at a greater risk of experiencing gambling-related harm. But once we identified these at-risk players, we started to send them tailored, responsible gambling messages through email.

Becca Vicetal (10:40)
these messages encourage the players to reflect on their play, to establish a budget, to set a deposit limit in their account management section of their Illinois lottery account. So far, we have sent out two rounds of RG intervention through email. I’ve been working closely with our internal data science team who have been monitoring these players’ behavior.

Becca Vicetal (11:08)
behavior weekly and monthly using that marker our markers of harm criteria. So we plan to continue monitoring these players over time to determine if

Becca Vicetal (11:22)
The RG interactions were effective and encouraging a change in their play behaviors. But that said, this is still a very new pilot. We just launched it last month. So there’s definitely a lot we’re still learning and figuring out, but ultimately the hope is that we can start being more proactive and identifying our online players who may potentially be at risk and more importantly, reaching out to them as early as possible before things escalate. So I look forward to sharing.

Becca Vicetal (11:51)
some of the data and findings once we’re further along the pilot and have enough information.

liz (11:57)
That is really exciting because we know there can be differences and risks related to brick and mortar kind of

Becca Vicetal (12:03)
Mm-hmm.

liz (12:03)
establishments for for gambling products as well as online stuff and leveraging some of the risk by, you know, gathering some of those markers of harm. You know, I know I’ve heard about that through another company called Mindway AI that, you know, makes

Becca Vicetal (12:18)
Yep. Yep.

liz (12:20)
those products available to other online operators to look at some of these behaviors, but also get some

liz (12:26)
input on how they might be able to get that feedback back to the players. Right. So the one of the things I love about what I’m hearing here is that responsible gambling, safer gambling, informed gambling shouldn’t be a one and done. It should be an ongoing process. And what is my exact play like? Are there any areas for improvement or any areas of concern that we need to address.

liz (12:47)
That’s really neat. before we move on to my next question, I did want to ask you because I thought there was something interesting about the recall rate of age verification that you learned from that

Becca Vicetal (12:56)
Mm, yeah.

liz (12:57)
survey. And I know I’m going backwards, but could you talk a little bit about that and what you’ve done with that data?

Becca Vicetal (13:03)
Yeah, so that finding actually came from our retailer responsible gaming satisfaction survey that we conducted last year. so the purpose of that survey is to measure

Becca Vicetal (13:16)
Our retailers’ overall satisfaction with our RG program and to gain insight into ways that we can improve our support to retailers when it comes to responsible gambling. So overall, the results from the survey were positive. We had 84% of retailer respondents reported that they were satisfied with the current resources that we devote to minimizing risk for our players at retail. However, we

Becca Vicetal (13:46)
Did see that only 9% of our respondents were able to correctly answer that they should be checking IDs for customers that look 25 years of age and younger prior to completing a lottery purchase. So that told us pretty clearly that we needed to do more to educate our retailers and improve awareness and implementation of our ID policy. So one of the first things that we did to address this was we started adding.

Becca Vicetal (14:17)
Like an age verification sticker to all of our retailers’ photons that remind them of our age verification policy. We’ve also continued to focus on training and regularly communicating with our retailers to make sure that they have this information and the support that they need. We’ve also started performing annual specialized RG training sessions for our lottery sales representatives. They serve as the main

Becca Vicetal (14:44)
Point of contact for our retail partners across the state. And we wanted to remind them of that age verification policy. But yeah, we we plan to conduct another retailer survey next year to see what’s working, where there are still gaps, and how we can continue improving our RG support that we provide to our retailers.

liz (15:09)
That is so important. I can’t tell you how excited I am to hear that. As an addictions professional, I know and the research tells us that the younger someone is when they are exposed to an addictive product, the more likely

Becca Vicetal (15:23)
Yeah.

liz (15:23)
they are to experience gambling related or is experience harm. And in this case

Becca Vicetal (15:27)
Mm-hmm.

liz (15:28)
gambling related harm. And so those age verifications and making sure that people are not playing the lottery underage is so important.

liz (15:38)
and you are hitting it at the the point of sale, which is incredible. I’m very interested to hear because I think this segues nicely into the annual gift responsibly campaign. Can you tell us about that and how does the lottery participate?

Becca Vicetal (15:54)
Yeah, so we we run several responsible gaming awareness campaigns throughout the year. we participate in the Gift Responsibly campaign, which runs through November and December, and that focuses on raising awareness about the risks of youth gambling and in and encouraging responsible gambling practices during the holiday season. so similar to

Becca Vicetal (16:20)
What we do for all of our campaigns, we test the messaging before the campaign launches to make sure it resonates with our players.

Becca Vicetal (16:31)
so we have a wide variety of activities that we do for gift responsibly. so we have social media posts, we have retailer and player messaging, we have a joint press release with ICPG, targeted print and digital ads in both English and Spanish. we have messaging on the front of our draw tickets, and even on a billboard in Springfield, Illinois, one

Becca Vicetal (16:58)
Campaign activity that’s sort of unique though to the Gift Responsibly campaign is our wobbler, which is an asset that actually dangles from the lottery terminal. We started adding this specifically to bring the message right at point of sale, where players are actually purchasing their tickets.

Becca Vicetal (17:18)
And something that we do for every campaign, we conduct a post-campaign survey through our player brand tracker. So the results from last year’s campaign were very positive. They showed that 62% of people who recalled seeing our gift responsibly campaign said they would be less likely to gift a lottery ticket to a minor. That compares to 41% of people who didn’t recall seeing the campaign.

Becca Vicetal (17:48)
And if we we found that that wobbler was pretty effective as well, 72 72% of respondents who were called seeing our campaign said that they saw it at our wobbler point of sale asset. So that was very positive. But you know, it really enforces the value of testing our messaging before we launch and measuring the results afterwards so it allows us to see what’s really resonating with our players and where we can continue to improve our campaign efforts.

liz (18:18)
That’s very exciting because I know i around the holidays we all get busy and we have a lot of people on our gift list, right? And so it can be quick and easy to to run into a convenience store or a grocery store and hit that button a few times and and then just kind of hand those out in, you know, cards and and along with other gifts and not recognizing that those are not for minors and the harm

Becca Vicetal (18:43)
yeah.

liz (18:44)
that can come.

liz (18:44)
is really important. It’s one of the reasons that Nicasa has actually been a non-lottery participant participant in the gift responsibly campaign for years. and we get young people involved a lot. Actually I want to do a shout out right now because Round Lake High School, Go Panthers, they’ve committed

Becca Vicetal (19:02)
Yeah.

liz (19:03)
in their civics class to do some sort of project during the gift responsibly campaign to try to help raise awareness in the adults in their lives that

liz (19:12)
Lottery products are not for kids during the holidays or any other gift giving occasions. So that’s exciting. We usually also provide a gift-giving guide. So,

Becca Vicetal (19:24)
Mm-hmm.

liz (19:25)
you know, again, we’re all busy, you know, what are some alternatives? And we actually poll young people in the community and like if somebody had five, ten bucks to spend on you, what would you like as a gift? And then we kind of put those out there and give people ideas. So

liz (19:39)
one other thing that I was really curious about was the online safeguards because you had mentioned

Becca Vicetal (19:46)
Mm. Okay.

liz (19:49)
wanting to increase the awareness of some of those opportunities for online players to increase safety. And can you tell us what are some of those safeguards?

Becca Vicetal (20:00)
I would love to. so when it comes to helping our online players, the Illinois Lottery has built many responsible gambling tools and safeguards into our online gaming platform. so I’d love to highlight some of those safeguards first. there’s the age verification to prevent underage play. so we conduct

Becca Vicetal (20:20)
What’s called a know your customer identification review during the account registration process. So that helps us make sure that all of our registered account holders meet the legal requirements to play online, including being at least 18 years old and a resident of Illinois. We also have deposit limits which are designed to help prevent overspending. So there is a maximum rolling seven-day deposit limit of $1,050 set for.

Becca Vicetal (20:50)
All remote gaming players at registration. so players can choose to lower that deposit limit at any time through their account management section of their online account. and if they and that change will take effect immediately, but if they want to raise a previously lowered deposit limit, they must wait 24 hours for that change to take effect.

Becca Vicetal (21:17)
Another safeguard is our wallet limit to encourage responsible spending. So the maximum balance players may hold in their Illinois lottery account is 2,000.

Becca Vicetal (21:31)
For our fast play game specifically, we also have ticket purchase limits to prevent excessive play. So we have limited the maximum number of fast play tickets that can be purchased within a 24-hour period to 75 and have limited the max number of fast play tickets that can be purchased in one transaction to 20.

Becca Vicetal (21:53)
We also want our online players to be able to reflect on their play. So we allow them to view their play and transaction history in that account management section of their account. We also have play break nudges as well. So the remote gaming platform, they automatically send a notification at 30-minute intervals and requires that players select between taking a break.

Becca Vicetal (22:23)
or continuing to play. We also have timeouts. So if someone is logged into their account for more than five continuous hours, the system requires a 15-minute break. And then one last safeguard we have is that we offer a self-exclusion option for our players to opt out of playing the Illinois Lottery Online. So yeah, taking together these tools and safeguards are there to support

Becca Vicetal (22:53)
our online players and make sure that they are able to stay in control of their play.

liz (22:58)
Mm-hmm. a lot of that I really want to recap because it was so important. I like that you can lower your amount immediately. So if you realize I’ve gotten, you know, I’ve been

Becca Vicetal (23:07)
At any time, yep. Mm-hmm.

liz (23:10)
doing too much, I’m having a hard time paying my bills, you can lower it immediately. But when you want to increase it from a previously lowered one, there’s a waiting period.

Becca Vicetal (23:18)
Yeah.

liz (23:18)
And that really helps because we can really be impulsive when we’re, you know, in the zone and then talking about being in the

Becca Vicetal (23:22)
Exactly. Yep.

liz (23:24)
zone.

liz (23:24)
That’s one of the things that can have people playing longer and more intensely than they really intended. And so in have having those things in place that kind of interrupt that I know I’ve been on social media and it gives me the little thing, like, you want to take a break?

Becca Vicetal (23:35)
Ha ha ha.

liz (23:37)
And I’m Yes, I do, thank you. Needed that little reminder. So I like that. And then, you know, you had mentioned the self-exclusion program. And one of the things that I like about that, and some of the people that we’ve worked with have elected to do that, is because I believe it also would remove them from getting.

liz (23:54)
promotions sent to them, right? About

Becca Vicetal (23:55)
Yes, yeah.

liz (23:57)
lottery products. And we know sometimes you can have a goal and you’re doing well, but then you get that that thing in the mail or something like that and it might derail you from your goals. So that’s one of the features that I think is pretty good about that.

Becca Vicetal (24:10)
Yeah, we remove all excluded players from our promotional and marketing list. So they won’t

liz (24:14)
Right.

Becca Vicetal (24:15)
receive any messaging during, you know, their exclusion period.

liz (24:19)
Right. This has been really fascinating. Where can listeners go to access more information about the responsible gaming features at the Illinois Lottery?

Becca Vicetal (24:27)
Yeah, so that’s a great question. If anyone is looking for more information about our responsible gaming program program, you can find it all on the Illinois Lottery website. So we actually have a portion of our website dedicated to providing information about responsible gambling. and this can be found under the Responsible Play tab in the main menu bar. so this responsible play web pages, they include a few pages.

Becca Vicetal (24:57)
Actually, that are all very helpful. We have our our commitment page, and that includes copies of the Illinois Lottery’s annual responsible gaming reports. We also have a Where to Get Help page, and that describes some problem gambling warning signs and points people to where some of the problem gambling resources are available. We also have a gaming safeguards page and that provides practical tips to support positive play.

Becca Vicetal (25:27)
As well as an overview of some of those RG safeguards that I just talked about that are available for our online players.

liz (25:36)
All right, that’s a lot of great information, and we’ll make sure to put that URL in our show notes. So anybody

Becca Vicetal (25:41)
Yes.

liz (25:42)
who wants to check that out, that’ll be there. Well, hang in there, Becca, because you might have some

Becca Vicetal (25:46)
Yeah.

liz (25:47)
additional things that you want to chime in about later.

liz (25:50)
But I’d like to switch over to Ivan and and get some great information from him. So thank you so much. So Ivan, welcome and I’m really excited to hear from you.

liz (26:03)
What is your role at the Illinois Gaming Machine Operators and in what way does responsible gambling fit into your work?

Ivan Fernandez (26:10)
Well, first let me say congratulations on the launch of this excellent pr platform. And

liz (26:15)
Thank you.

Ivan Fernandez (26:16)
I want to thank Becca for being here and and providing all her information, which we will, you know, I I won’t have to repeat what she said. We’re gonna echo a lot of of the feelings that they have at the lottery. as far as our industry as an overhead to the whole discussion, we are a regulated industry. We are licensed and and monitored by the Illinois Gaming Board.

Ivan Fernandez (26:39)
we’re a newer industry. We went live in twenty twelve. we’ve grown leaps and bounds, if you will, up to this point. And with that growth comes a lot more responsibility and we accept that obligation and that responsibility and we want to do everything that we can.

Ivan Fernandez (26:56)
to meet those obligations. As far as who I am, my name’s Ivan Fernandez. I’m the president and executive director of the Illinois Gaming Machine Operators Association. I represent the 75% of the industry, which are the individuals who provide and maintain the equipment that’s located in our partner locations, which there’s close to 9,000 locations now throughout Illinois that that host our equipment.

Ivan Fernandez (27:25)
And basically when it comes to responsible gaming, we understand that it’s a part of a responsibility and we want video gaming to remain safe, sustainable form of entertainment, and we’re committed to doing whatever is reasonable for us to keep that going for as long as possible.

liz (27:44)
And so what are some of the efforts, some of the we call it RG efforts that the Gaming Machine Operators Association have been involved in?

Ivan Fernandez (27:54)
We provide all the res responsible gaming information that is required of us by the gaming board. we make we are a founding member of the Illinois Council on Problem Gambling, so we’ve been engaged in this since the onset. And when we just wanna make sure that we get the information. I think Becca made a an excellent point about making sure that people are aware and we wanna make sure that we’re a part of that that solution as well, making awareness a big part of this.

Ivan Fernandez (28:24)
And let letting people know that our games are entertainment. And the moment that it becomes anything other than entertainment, we want to be able to point them in the right direction so that they can get the help that they may need or find the resources that they may need to address those concerns.

liz (28:41)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I know from, you know, we’ve known each other for a number of years and there were a couple of things that I thought were really helpful efforts that I’ve seen you all do, including sending out information, just like Becca had mentioned, sending out information to the point of sale to make sure that they’re aware of the need to have helpline information available, for example, for people who might be experiencing any sort of gambling related harm.

liz (29:10)
Another thing that I recall, and I hope I’m correct in this, but is that there was a time when our 1-800 Gambler helpline was available by phone and by live chat on the website, which is by the way, are you really winning dot com? And my recollection is that your organization was pivotal in getting a text feature available now that remains in effect up to this day. Am I correct in that?

Ivan Fernandez (29:35)
That’s that is correct. We we created and funded that that program before the Illinois Department of Public Health took it over. we’re very proud of that. We like I said, we want to be engaged in this conversation. we know that there is a responsibility based on our product and what it provides, and we want to be a resource and be able to supply and and and provide resources to those that may need them.

liz (29:57)
Right. And and you know, Becca had brought up problem gambling. So problem gambling and responsible gambling are things that come up in the same conversation because part of responsible gambling is recognizing that harm can happen, problem gambling can happen. What does that look like? And what do I do if I see it? And ideally, as soon as it’s being recognized, you know, reaching out, we we tend to have people have a sense of

liz (30:23)
it’s not that bad yet, or I haven’t hit rock bottom, right? That’s a whole conversation I’ve had with some other people and it’s you it’s never too early to reach out and learn about some of these things and maybe how to correct course. Now there’s an interesting publication that I wanted to ask you about, Ivan. It’s the Illinois Gaming and Beverage Review. How does that provide an outlet for responsible gambling information?

Ivan Fernandez (30:48)
So

Ivan Fernandez (30:48)
We’re very proud of the review. It’s a new publication. The first edition was published in March of this year. So it’s it’s something that will be going directly to our location. So all of the 9,000 locations will be getting that publication or receive that publication. And one of the founding principles of that that publication was to make sure that every issue included the topic of responsible gaming and had some information out there because we know that the people that are going to be receiving this public.

Ivan Fernandez (31:19)
Are the ones that are in direct contact with our players. They’re the ones that are going to need to be reminded that this is entertainment and that if you come across individuals or players that are regulars that come in every day and you notice a change in their behavior, that you need to be aware that there are resources available that you can turn that person to, turn them on to. And to along those lines, not only are we proud of the review, but we’ve also worked with the Council on Problem Gambling.

Ivan Fernandez (31:48)
To come up with a module, a training module, which we’ll be launching very soon. And that is going to be available to our owners and our and their employees to basically give them an interactive training session where they will have to interact with an AI bot that will provide scenarios for them to respond to. And it will make them respond to that scenario and then comment on that response and guide them as to.

Ivan Fernandez (32:16)
Maybe there was a better way to handle that situation. And really what we want to make sure that we’re doing is not training people to think that they’re junior counselors, but rather how to identify when someone may need information and how to approach that person.

Ivan Fernandez (32:31)
respectfully and with that information to to do it deliver it well. So it’s all about educating and informing people on what’s the proper response when you see something. Not you know not to pull out a couch and have them lay down and try to give them more information than they they probably are are skilled or qualified to provide. But rather there is help available and if you just want information we can point you in the right direction.

liz (32:55)
I really appreciate that and I know that in my work as a outreach person, I will pop into some of these establishments and there’s a variety of responses you get and sometimes it’s like we don’t need that right up through here, I’ll take that one eight hundred gambler information and I’ll make sure that it’s located throughout the location in case anybody needs it. So I think it’s very powerful when the importance of that comes

liz (33:22)
from you. Like personally, I’m a certified

Ivan Fernandez (33:23)
Yeah.

liz (33:24)
gambling counselor. Of course I think everybody needs this information. But when it comes from, you know, higher up, when it comes from within the organization and the industry, I think that is really powerful for the the point of sale people, but also for the players. in and so if you have the people who are you know providing these machines saying, hey, it’s important that you know about that this

liz (33:48)
harm can happen and if it does, there’s really good information that you could you know, be pointed to that might help. do you think how do you think we can get players more informed about responsible gambling principles earlier on? and then, you know, I’m just mentioning this because I have seen in my work that people start exploring responsible gambling

liz (34:17)
strategies after they’ve already experienced gambling harm. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing to do. I’m saying it’s much more effective when responsible gambling strategies are used before harm occurs. Can you think of any ways with all these efforts that you’re doing that we can get people informed earlier on in the process?

Ivan Fernandez (34:38)
Yes. I mean that’s that’s a conversation that we’ve had in our in our problem gambling I I C P G meetings. It’s something that we’ve we think needs to be addressed. I think the earlier the better. I mean I think at some point high school was the the target. I think at this point we have to go younger than that. I think we have to even go to middle school or even el elementary school to even begin the conversation to get people to understand

Ivan Fernandez (35:03)
That the video games that they’re playing where they have to get so many points to earn another weapon or whatever it might be, I don’t play, so I don’t know, but if this is my understanding of it, that’s part of the same triggers. And they need to understand that. And the parents, of course, need to understand that as well. So I think I think our next effort or one that we should all work together as as an industry towards is coming up with a comprehensive program to get into the schools and to just introduce that not only to the students themselves.

Ivan Fernandez (35:31)
but also to the parents to to understand that this there there are risks involved and that those risks need to be addressed and and and as soon as possible, as as early as possible.

liz (35:43)
Right. I I completely agree. And actually there are some pretty good opportunities out there for schools to take advantage of existing stuff. For example, there’s a a program that Chestnut Health Systems created called Not a Chance. And it’s a gambling prevention curriculum, six sessions, it’s for ninth and tenth graders. there’s other opportunities for providers like NYCASA and some of the other gambling outreach programs to come into local schools.

liz (36:11)
So you’ve got the resources, let’s get in there. And then also support for these, you know, like there’s a lot of middle schools out there, there’s a lot of high schools out there, so making sure there’s adequate support so that those great programs can get in front of those students. So I really do appreciate that thought. You know, we talked about being an informed player and because the digital nature of gambling and like you mentioned, Ivan, that there are a lot of gambling components now.

liz (36:41)
within video games and other apps that our young people might be encountering these concepts cannot wait until you know twenties and thirties to be learned really middle school and high school we need to get this information out there to the students and to the parents.

liz (37:02)
Now we’ve had some really interesting conversation and I wanted to open it up for either of you is there anything that you heard

liz (37:10)
from each other that made you think of something, something that you wanted to go back and comment on what your industry is doing, or anything you’d just like to comment on.

Becca Vicetal (37:21)
Yeah, so Ivan, you were talking about that training module that’s interactive and working with AI bots. I I would love to see that when that is ready because we we have several specialized RG training sessions that we do for anyone who’s interacting with our players directly or

Becca Vicetal (37:44)
If they’re involved with the development of our games or our marketing materials. We have specialized training for our product team, our marketing PR teams, our Illinois lottery sales reps, our player hotline staff who respond directly to player outreach. So I am very excited about that training module that you talked about. And I think, you know, that could maybe be a good fit for some of our training sessions that the Illinois

Ivan Fernandez (38:14)
Yeah, we’re really excited about it. We work with Dave Wool and and Heather Martinez on it, getting it developed. it’s going to launch literally before the end of the month, most likely. It’ll be available on the

Becca Vicetal (38:25)
Wow, okay.

Ivan Fernandez (38:25)
site. And the wonderful thing about it is that the person once they complete it, they can

Ivan Fernandez (38:30)
They can get a certificate of completion, they can print that out, they can bring it to an employer or a potential employer to let them know what what kind of training they’ve had. Ultimately, my goal would be to get that information to be a part of the beverage alcohol seller and server entertaining and education training and make that module a part of that because most of the individuals that take the bet Bassett training as it’s referred to will also benefit from this from this training. So we’re really looking

Ivan Fernandez (39:00)
to talk to our regulators about making this a part of that that discussion. And and that’ll be happening very soon. Very, very soon. We’re very excited about it. I think they did an excellent job putting that together.

Becca Vicetal (39:12)
I look forward to seeing that on your website.

Ivan Fernandez (39:14)
The other thing I was gonna say is that I’m very happy to hear all that the lottery is doing. Obviously we’re not privy to that. They’re not they’re not part of the they’re not regulated by the Illinois Gaming Board, so we don’t know necessarily what what they’re doing or what the gaming board excuse me, what they’re doing individually as an industry. And I think that this is a responsibility across the board for every industry, whether we be regulated or unregulated. And I think that the the studies and the and the and the evidence should lead the discussion.

Ivan Fernandez (39:44)
Where are the problems at so that we can dedicate the resources to that? I can tell you that my industry is fully committed to doing everything that we can. That is, so long as that policy is evidence-based, we’d like to make sure that we aren’t being res held to carry a heavier load than another industry that might be just as responsible or more responsible. So

Ivan Fernandez (40:08)
While we’re ready to take on our responsibility, we want everyone to take on their responsibility ’cause that’s the only way we can succeed. And I’m very happy to hear all that that the lottery is doing on their own. No one’s forcing them and they’re doing it on their own. That’s excellent.

Becca Vicetal (40:20)
thank you. Yeah, we we do a lot of research throughout the year and it’s just really helpful for us to sort of see where our gaps are you know, and how we’re going to address them. And you know, we’ve been running a full gambling literacy educational campaign and you know we see the findings from our retailer surveys and you know we wanna address those things right away, make sure that our retailers know more about our age verification policy. so that’s very

Becca Vicetal (40:49)
important for us to you know continually looking at our program, seeing how we can improve and we what we want everyone around the industry to do the same.

liz (41:01)
You know, Ivan, you brought up an important point about the need to be evidence based research driven. And the dilemma there becomes the lack of research, right? So we do know that there is a huge discrepancy between substance use r research and treatment, so funding being there to support those things from happening versus for gambling. and so there’s a huge discrepancy even though the

liz (41:30)
There is not that big of a difference between people who experience gambling-related harm and substance-related harm. So, you know, any advocacy that can make that more equal can foster more research so that we know where are the gaps, where are the areas for concern, and beef those up. I appreciate Becca what you mentioned about doing your own research. So that’s always an interesting and helpful thing to do.

liz (41:54)
Illinois did a statewide survey in 2020 that came out in 2021 that has some very good information. That can be found on the are you really winning.com website. So check that out. And we are in that timeframe now where that study or that survey is going to be continued and see because the world of gambling has changed dramatically since 2020. So

liz (42:20)
we should hopefully have some much more current data and hopefully that will drive some very effective responsible gambling practices. So I really just want to wrap up some some things that I heard and I think are important for our listeners and viewers and I’m gonna call them sound bytes spelled with a Y because we have a kind of a tech theme. one is that responsible gambling is not just for the player.

liz (42:49)
This is a shared responsibility with the industry, with the point of sale people, with the players themselves, with family members and and other people who might facilitate or encourage betting in maybe vulnerable populations, that this is not something that’s a one and done, that it’s an ongoing thing to learn what is working, what is not working, where are the areas for improvement.

liz (43:15)
And then when we’re looking at that player perspective, checking in, being informed, seeing how am I doing, are there things that I’m doing that are not all that healthy that I need to correct course, and making sure at all times that if there is harm that is being experienced, that you’re accessing the really great resources that are out there. So we’re gonna have some

liz (43:38)
resources in our show notes and of course they’re always going to include the are you really winning dot com website which is a fantastic place to have access to information, self-screening so you can confidentially check in on your gambling and get personalized feedback and even connect to helpline staff if necessary and that can be for people who themselves are gambling or just want to check in on the the gambling of a loved one. And so I thank you to

liz (44:07)
For being our first guests. This is Responsible Gambling Education Month. So it was very important that we rolled this out by starting this conversation that will be ongoing. We hope to have other industries represented and learn what are some of the responsible gambling efforts that other industries and other operators are doing, things that the players need to be aware of because again, responsible gambling tools don’t

liz (44:37)
work as well when they are only discovered after gambling harm has happened. So thank you so much for being our inaugural guests and we look forward to maybe some further conversations down the road to follow this up.

Ivan Fernandez (44:51)
Thank you. Looking forward to it.

Becca Vicetal (44:52)
Thank you, Elizabeth.

Becca Vicetal (44:53)
Thank you so much.

liz (44:53)
All right.

Ivan Fernandez (44:54)
Congratulations again. This was awesome.

liz (44:54)
You guys thank

liz (44:57)
you.

Elizabeth: about, we encourage you to keep the conversation going.

Follow Before the Bet wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to join us for our next episode as we continue exploring the technology, trends, psychology, and industry forces shaping modern gambling. And if you’d like to learn more about gambling-related information and support available through the Illinois Gambling Helpline, you can call 1-800-GAMBLER, [00:56:00] visit areyousreallywinning.com, or text GAMB to 833-234.

Thanks for listening to Before the Bet. This podcast is supported through funding in whole or in part through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services, Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery.