Ron Finlay, CEO of responsible gambling watchdog The Senet Group, is among the panel of independent judges announced for this year’s WhichBingo Awards, the biggest awards event dedicated solely to online bingo.
The expert panel, which will preside over the prestigious ‘Most Socially Responsible Bingo Operator’ award, consists of:
● Ron Finlay: CEO of The Senet Group
● Stella Dalton: Head of Education & Prevention at GamCare
● Simo Dragicevic: CEO of Bet Buddy
● Peter Jones: Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Gloucestershire
This award aims to recognise excellence in responsible gambling practices in online bingo industry by highlighting and rewarding those operators who have shown outstanding effort in implementing safeguards and procedures for their customers.
Ron Finlay, CEO of the Senet Group said: “The primary goal of the Senet Group is to promote responsible gambling standards, and ensure that the marketing of gambling is socially responsible. This applies across all sectors, both offline and online.”
“We are delighted to help raise awareness of responsible gambling practices within the online bingo sector by helping to judge the ‘Most Socially Responsible Bingo Operator’ category in the WhichBingo awards. It is important that operators are encouraged and recognised for going beyond what is expected of them in regards to player protection.”
Awards organiser Wayne Howe said, “This is the first time we’ve put together a judging panel for one of our awards, and we’re delighted with the breadth of expertise we’ve gathered in our four panelists.”
“Each brings a different perspective on the issues around social responsibility and problem gambling, and I am really looking forward to seeing the panel debate which operators are doing the best work in this field.”
Bingo operators looking to claim this award will need to ensure they submit their nominations before the deadline of 1.00pm on Wednesday 22nd April. The operators’ nomination form can be downloaded at www.whichbingo.co.uk/awards/marketing-support/
In total there are ten categories in the 2015 WhichBingo Awards, including Best Online Bingo Site, Best Mobile Bingo Experience and Best Online Bingo Software, all of which will be decided by votes from real online bingo players.
For more information about the WhichBingo Awards visit: www.whichbingo.co.uk/awards/ or contact Wayne Howe, Event Organiser on [email protected], telephone 0113 3930500.
About WhichBingo
Founded in 2001 by Phil Fraser, Focus Online Management has been at the forefront of online bingo advertising since it burst onto the internet with WhichBingo.com.
WhichBingo.co.uk was then developed as the first dedicated portal established to cover the UK online bingo market, and since 2004 has remained a leading name in the industry ever since. At its core is the largest directory of UK bingo sites, allowing players to read and leave reviews on every site. WhichBingo was awarded ‘Gaming Review Site of the Year’ at the 2011 EGR awards, followed by ‘Online Gaming Community of the Year’ at the 2012 awards. In addition WhichBingo was named ‘Bingo Affiliate of the Year’ at IGB in January 2012. In 2015 the website was relaunched with a brand new responsive design and TV campaign.
About the Senet Group
The Senet Group is an independent body set up to promote responsible gambling standards and ensure that marketing of gambling is socially responsible. It’s members include Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and William Hill who in 2015 agreed to a voluntary code of practice that included not advertising free money offers on TV before 9pm and dedicating 20% of all shop window advertising to responsible gambling messages.
In 2015 the group launched a multi-million pound high impact advertising campaign to educate people about the risks of gambling and how to stay in control, featuring the slogan ‘When the fun stops. Stop.’
About GamCare
GamCare is the leading provider of information, advice, support and free counselling for the prevention and treatment of problem gambling. GamCare also offers advice and training on social responsibility and player protection to the gambling industry through fee-based products such as GamCare certification which recognises operators who adhere to a recommended code of best practice in areas such as age verification, staff training, Facilitating time and spend limits, self-exclusion and displaying information about sources of help.
About Bet Buddy
Bet Buddy is a B2B software house who provide advanced analytics solutions to the gaming industry. Bet Buddy’s award winning products help gaming companies to better understand and interpret player behaviours and to better manage problem gamblers.
About Peter Jones
Peter Jones is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Gloucestershire. He has over 25 years of teaching, research experience and consultancy experience in universities and commercial operations in the UK and overseas. His major research and consultancy interests are in corporate social responsibility and sustainability in the service sector of the economy and he has published a number of papers on gambling and social responsibility in the gambling industry.
