Committed to addressing illegal gambling and related criminal activities while minimising any potential harm on society, EL has developed a Standard that aims to promote the adoption of best practices across the EL membership: the EL Responsible Gaming Certification.
EL Member Loterie Nationale in Luxembourg is Responsible Gaming certified for the fifth time. This is an excellent achievement which emphasises the importance of the core lottery value of responsibility.
In this interview, Director Léon Losch of Loterie Nationale tells us all about the growing activities of the lottery in the field of responsible gaming and the developments over the past years since its first EL Responsible Gaming Certification.
Your lottery has been certified for the fifth time. How did the process differ from previous certifications? What are the biggest lessons learnt?
This fifth certification, under the new 2020 EL Standard, was different for two main reasons. First, the introduction of a very specific governance section required some reporting adjustments. Furthermore, this was our first certification since we introduced Virtual Lottery Terminals (VLT) in our portfolio, games which demand special attention in terms of responsible gaming processes.
The process itself was conducted 100% remotely, with secure file sharing for evidences, which added flexibility in terms of scheduling.
Could you tell us about your progress since the first certification? What has changed and how did you grow and learn in the past 13 years?
While the objectives of player protection remain the same after all these years, our business and its environment has evolved significantly. As the digital share of our business grows year-on-year, we are able to offer better player protection through responsible gaming features on our websites. Moreover, while we diversified our games portfolio, we discovered new aspects to be addressed and new strategies to improve our processes. Last but not least, over time, responsible gaming has become a transversal topic, rather than a single function.
Reaching the fifth certification is a huge achievement. Did you set yourself specific goals this time and did you reach your expected results?
The most important goal for us was to develop a long-term responsible gaming programme which would give us directions and help us to continuously improve our approach. Since a section of this programme focuses on documentation, we can keep track of our progress, which helped for the certification process.
What was the most difficult part of the fifth certification and how did you overcome it?
As mentioned earlier, we recently launched our VLT network (Electronic Gaming Machines, in the Standard), a business that requires specific responsible gaming attention and which was quite new to us. We had of course developed policies and tools based on best practices, but the fifth certification was the opportunity to conduct a gap analysis in light of the Standard. In the end, the prospect of the certification process helped us improve our approach.
What was the added value for your lottery in being certified for a fifth time? For example, how does it influence your daily business - retail outlets, product development, relation with stakeholders?
Being certified for the fifth time helps us demonstrate our continued commitment to upholding ethical and socially responsible business practices. It is especially relevant on our market where we need a clear differentiator from the illegal operators who unfortunately still take advantage of the most vulnerable players.
What advice do you have for EL Members concerning their (re)-certification process?
It is all about clear and documented processes, so be meticulous. And plan for the long run, because it is a constant involvement, not a race for the certification.
