Loteries de Catalunya becomes first EL Member to be RG certified under the new 2021 Framework
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 (RG) Certification.
Congratulations to Loteries de Catalunya for being the first EL Member to be RG certified under the new 2021 EL Framework which was adopted at the General Assembly earlier this year.
During this interview with Mr Jaume Torrabadella, Director and CEO of Loteries de Catalunya, we hear all about how the lottery has been Responsible Gaming (RG) certified under the new 2021 Certification Framework. Loteries de Catalunya is the first EL Member to be certified under this new Framework.
Your lottery was the first to be certified under the 2021 Responsible Gaming (RG) Certification while the world still recovers from a global pandemic. How was the process to become certified? Did everything take place online or was it possible to have meetings in person? What are the biggest lessons learnt from such an experience?
Since the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, our organisation (like the rest of companies around the world) had to change all processes in order to continue with our daily work. The challenge was even bigger in our case since we were part of the Catalonian Public Administration with a quite with a quite rigid model where only face-to-face was considered. However, Covid-19 has been a turning point in many scenarios, with new organisational challenges, especially in the field of human resources, and has meant a new way of working between teams.
The RG Certification process was organised through online meetings with the teams from all involved departments, as well as with our consultancy company, SilverFish, who help us in the implementation process of the RG requirements and the preparation for the evaluation audit. And the majority of all these meetings and training were held online.
During this project we have learned how to work in an organised and multi-functional way, with follow-up weekly meetings with all departments as our RG Programme includes all areas of the company.
Another relevant point to mention is that we had the appropriate tools and sources to carry out this Project, not only having SilverFish advice and knowledge about RG actions and measures, for example, for specific training platforms or game risk evaluation tools, but also knowing that you can count on them if you need support or help in certain issues that we wanted to develop or improve.
As Loteries de Catalunya is the first EL Member to use the 2021 RG Certification Framework, how did you find the process? Could you tell us your story about this great achievement?
We were going to be audited in a short time when the European Lotteries (EL) published the new 2021 RG requirements. We checked and verified all the changes and the new criteria, and we finally decided that we were ready to be audited with the latest requirements so we could have the Certification under the new standards.
The last few months have been frantic in our Lottery. We have transformed our legal entity that it was a part of our Public Administration to a Public limited corporation. That represented a lot of changes and work through all different departments: Legal & Compliance, Finance,… Besides we were also with the RG Project. However, the entire team involved has been working hard and constantly to be able to obtain the Certification this fall, so we did a great job indeed!
Obtaining the RG Certification reaffirms our commitment to operate our activity according to the highest standards from the EL and WLA in RG. As a public social lottery, we believe that we have to act responsibly, being aware about the possible adverse effects that our games can cause to our players. That is why RG is and will be our main pillar of our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).
What was the biggest challenge?
Considering the global pandemic situation, the challenge was finding the best way to monitor and control the entire project. However, as mentioned before, thanks to the high capacity of teamwork and collaboration of the teams we were able to set up an organised work methodology.
What did you enjoy about the process? What were the biggest highlights?
It has been a challenging, beautiful and creative project as RG criteria encompass many different aspects: marketing, digital channels, HR and Retail training... We have enjoyed the projects as we have learned new measures to accomplish and new points of improvement.
What advice and tips do you have to EL Members who are about to start their first certification?
Being RG certified is a way of reflecting our commitment towards all our stakeholders about the importance to prevent and detect excessive playing and protect underaged from gaming.
It is really important to communicate correctly the importance of this Project across the organisation. We did a relevant piece on that; committing and communicating the Project to all internal and external stakeholders, so everybody was alert about this achievement and what represents to us.
We are a public social lottery. Not only we want to be transparent doing our business, but also we want to commit about doing business in a responsible way.