Building a Safer Gambling Future: Tim Miller's Address at the GambleAware Annual Conference
At one of the most important annual events in the gambling industry – the GambleAware conference in the heart of London – industry leaders make vital announcements and share their views on future developments and trends.
One of the most striking and important speeches was given by Tim Miller. He has been the Executive Director of the Gambling Commission in the United Kingdom since 2016, and overall he has over 15 years of experience in the industry.
His speech was called "Building the Best Possible New System", and it attracted many positive comments and reactions.
Here are its main points:
Collaboration is essential to building an effective gambling harm prevention system. Since each case is unique, it is imperative to study and include "diverse voices". The National Strategy has taken important steps to strengthen partnership and inclusion, which should continue in the future.
It is important to consider and analyze the experience of not only those people who have experiences of harm, but also to study all insights from non-harmful gamblers. It is also necessary to have contributions from existing services and industry professionals, because each opinion has its own value.
It is very important to prioritize robust evidence for better decision-making and outcomes. Here it is worth noting the Evidence Gaps and Priorities program, which identifies six key areas in which research needs to be strengthened.
The new system must find the perfect balance between collaboration and evidence to combat all possible challenges along the way. Every wrong move can undermine progress, and it is very important to maintain credibility and public trust over time.
This path cannot be passed without challenges and mistakes, but the potential for transformative progress is significant. The introduction of a statutory levy is a unique opportunity to introduce innovations and strengthen all the benefits of harm reduction.
Overall, Tim Miller's speech conveyed a clear message: building the best possible new system is not just an opportunity – it is an imperative. It can be perceived as a call to action for stakeholders in the gambling ecosystem to unite, because only together the harm can be effectively reduced and the progress can be increased.
I wonder if this Tim himself likes gambling? And what is his favorite site? It would be interesting to ask him 🙂