As Europe marks Safer Gambling Week 2025, conversations are taking place across the continent to put in place strategies that keep players safe while they enjoy gambling responsibly. 

One operator who has been at the forefront of these conversations, not just on Safer Gambling Week but since the summer, is 1xBet. Since the appointment of Simon Westbury as its Strategic Advisor, 1xBet has put player protection at the forefront of its expansion strategy.

A landmark part of that strategy is the International Player Safety Index, a body of research conducted by SBC Media in association with 1xBet. Following the report’s publication, Westbury joined Anton Kaszubowski, Managing Director of SBC Advisory Partners, and Peter Marcus, CEO of Sunny Hill Marketing, in a conversation with the Player Protection Hub editor, Steve Hoare, about the report itself and the wider issues in the operator-regulator relationship. 

The Challenge of Regulatory Consistency

“The decision 1xBet made with recruiting me was to try and change the dialogue and perception around 1xBet, and player protection is a key component of what we’re trying to explore and develop,” Westbury said. 

“(We want to be) at the forefront of the engagement. No one really wants to be a role model because it has certain connotations to it. We’re all for awareness, we’re all for education, and we’re all for promoting treatment.”

The conversation kicked off with Kaszubowski dissecting the report, outlining that operators haven’t got the required dialogue from regulators to have confidence in their player protection strategies.

“It’s a lack of clarity and consistency across the different jurisdictions, and it remains a major challenge for operators to constantly apply and communicate their protection strategy at scale,” he said. “We’re therefore still in a relatively early period of development tests in learning, and best practice is still very much a work in progress.”

Westbury echoed these sentiments and stressed that the industry has to be better engaged with external stakeholders, or face increased taxes and more stringent regulation.

He explained: “We need more parity, consistency and communication as an industry. Not just with regulators, but also with society, because ultimately regulation is only going to tighten if we don’t get that balance right.”

Battling negative perceptions

It’s no secret that iGaming has a perception problem. The press, politicians, campaign groups and others are quick to bash the sector as a predator that should be limited, restricted and taxed as a social harm. 

But this perception, the panel outlined, isn’t facing much of a fightback, which means some of these views go unchallenged. 

Part of that, Marcus noted, was self-inflicted. 

“The challenge we’ve got as an industry is we’ve always been on the edge of things because of our history, and how we’ve grown up and dot-com regulations and now crypto. 

“As a whole, I think we have this perception that we have to try and ‘get away with it’. ‘What’s the minimum we can do to keep our license or to be OK?”

Marcus, who has had leadership positions at operators such as William Hill and Entain throughout his career, noted that some compliance tasks, such as VIP and AML checks, should be simple for most operators – and that taking these checks more seriously could result in a looser regulatory hand. 

“There’ll still be politics there, there’ll still be politicians who will get with a gambling news regulation or times with these pacts that will all still be there, but there’s a path for the restriction to wind away,” he added. 

Westbury questioned whether this would indeed be the case, quipping that “governments don’t step back from regulation”.

He also likened gambling to the alcohol industry, noting that, to an extent, drinks manufacturers know that there will be drink drivers, and that externally that is not viewed as the manufacturers’ fault. 

Own Goals and Industry Reputation

But there are instances where iGaming does score own goals. One recent example in the national press was The Guardian’s report that an operator that the paper does not wish to name at the moment was funnelling VIP customers offshore to get around stringent UKGC regulation. 

Marcus argued that it was almost certainly a smaller operator scoring the own goal and ruining things for the majority.

“Christmas has come early to some of those Labour politicians in the UK who tried to ban gambling or put a 50% tax on it,” he exclaimed.

When moderator Hoare recalled a conversation stating it’s an operator’s job to get as close to the regulatory line as possible to maximise profits, Westbury pushed back but conceded that it might be a perception that some operators have. 

Opening the Revolving Door

Another key issue, in the panel’s view, is that there is a lack of gambling industry expertise at the regulator level globally. 

While praising Andrew Rhodes at the UKGC, Marcus was slightly perplexed as to why iGaming doesn’t follow in the footsteps of other sectors like financial services, where there is more of a revolving door policy in place. 

He outlined: “I would beg this industry globally, and the regulators to start paying more and bringing people from the industry over, because if that happens, what you’re going to have is two things. First of all, a far better understanding of both sides, and they’ll catch a lot more because they know all the tricks that everyone does. 

“But the other side to that is they’d be able to educate the authorities on actually how the industry really works, because some of the regulations that come out by the world are unusable.”

The issue seems to be a general disdain for the regulator amongst operators, to a point where it is almost blasphemous for an operator executive to become the regulator. Indeed, Marcus pointed out that it could be a retirement job. 

Westbury said, “If you went to the regulator, you’re not coming back into the industry.”

Kaszubowski responded to this idea by calling for more co-operation and trust between all sides for the betterment of the sector and player protection as a whole. 

“There’s the poacher/gamekeeper relationship, and we’re trying to move away from that dynamic. We’re trying to move towards a symbiotic relationship between the regulator and the operator that is more communicative, that leads to regulation that makes sense.

“Operators, especially in multiple jurisdictions, have a lot of access to data using the latest technological tools around player protection that can inform a regulator in one market what’s best practice in another or what’s working and what doesn’t work. If you could have more of an open dialogue and conversation there, it would benefit everyone.”

It’s clear there is still somewhat of a stigma around the operator and regulator relationship, which may be damaging operators’ player protection strategies. 

Those taboos can only be broken down through conversations, which is a core part of Westbury’s role at 1xBet. Those conversations are not just taking place through the media, but with regulators too. With 1xBet’s 30+ global licences, the operator hopes to have a big impact.

You can sign up to watch the on-demand session by heading to the landing page here.