The Right conversation at the Right time
Ahead of his IAGA Summit appearance, Kane Purdy, Managing Director of Gamesys Operations, Chair of GamProtect UK and recently appointed Chair of the Betting and Gaming Council, argues that responsible gambling should no longer be treated as a compliance exercise or conference afterthought. In his view, the future lies in smarter, more personalised customer engagement, closer alignment between operators and regulators, and a far clearer distinction between the regulated market and the illegal one.
Responsible gambling has too often been treated as the industry’s obligatory final panel: present, acknowledged, but rarely positioned as central to the business itself. For Kane Purdy, that framing is long out of date.
As Managing Director of Gamesys Operations and Chair of GamProtect UK, Purdy sees responsible gambling not as a defensive exercise in avoiding fines or reputational damage, but as a commercial discipline embedded in sustainable customer relationships. In that sense, the discussion is no longer about balancing compliance with profitability. It is about building a better business.
“If you want to have a sustainable model and not be dragged over the coals from a regulatory or reputational viewpoint all the time, then it is essential – root and branch – to the way we run our business,” he says.
That view underpins his contribution to IAGA’s panel on innovations and global perspectives in responsible gambling, which will examine what is working across different jurisdictions in areas ranging from self-exclusion and youth protections to research funding and treatment models. Purdy’s contribution is likely to stand out because it is rooted less in broad rhetoric than in operational reality.
For him, the old binary thinking – either market aggressively to the customer or suppress them once risk is identified – misses the point. The more effective approach is to see every interaction as part of a broader customer journey.
“The right conversation at the right time” is how he defines it. Sometimes that conversation is promotional. Sometimes it is more difficult, drawing attention to emerging markers of harm and guiding a customer towards safer tools and controls. But the principle is the same. When it is evidence-based, timely and relevant, it strengthens the relationship rather than weakening it.
That also explains why Purdy is notably frank about the limits of many traditional responsible gambling campaigns. While he has little doubt that operators can measure the effectiveness of internal controls through data, analytics and machine learning, he is far less convinced by the wider impact of generic safer gambling messaging.
In his view, much of that campaign activity risks becoming white noise. It may satisfy policy or marketing requirements, but it does not necessarily change behaviour in the way operators or policymakers might hope. The more effective model, he argues, is far more direct: targeted, evidence-led interventions with individual customers based on what they are actually doing at that moment.
That is where Purdy sees one of the most significant opportunities now opening up through AI and improved data capability. Personalisation is usually discussed in terms of acquisition, retention and VIP strategy, but he believes the same tools can transform responsible gambling.
With better modelling and more granular customer insight, operators can move beyond generic safer gambling messages and towards more bespoke interventions: a message that reflects a specific behavioural change, a tailored nudge at the appropriate moment, or a guided conversation about available limits and controls. In Purdy’s view, that is far more meaningful than broad awareness campaigns that may look active from the outside but do little to alter outcomes.
His argument also reflects a wider shift in the relationship between operators and regulators. One of the most striking observations from the interview is Purdy’s insistence that he has never felt more aligned with the UK Gambling Commission than he does now. That is a notable statement at a time when relations between industry and regulation are often framed as adversarial by default.
Purdy’s view is that standards in the regulated market have materially risen. Enforcement has had an effect, weaker practices have been challenged, and the largest operators are now operating in an environment where expectations are clearer and more embedded. In that context, the biggest threat is no longer necessarily within the licensed market itself, but outside it.
This is, in many ways, the defining theme of his argument. Purdy believes too much of the public debate still conflates legal and illegal gambling into a single undifferentiated category. That, he says, is both analytically lazy and socially harmful.
The regulated market, he argues, has evolved significantly in recent years. Operators now deploy increasingly sophisticated controls around spend, time, deposits, affordability markers and behavioural indicators. The illegal market operates outside all of that. Yet political and media narratives often fail to draw the distinction clearly enough.
For Purdy, that has serious consequences. When the regulated sector is persistently portrayed as predatory without acknowledging the safeguards now in place, consumers can be nudged towards the very environments where those safeguards do not exist at all. In that sense, his growing alignment with the Commission stems from a shared recognition that the real enemy is increasingly the illegal marketplace.
That argument becomes even sharper against the backdrop of rising fiscal and political pressure on the UK sector. Purdy accepts that tax changes create risks, especially for smaller operators already operating at the margins. Yet he does not believe the largest businesses will respond by abandoning standards. The greater danger, he suggests, lies in weakening the competitiveness of the regulated offer while illegal operators continue to market aggressively, advertise through loopholes and exploit weak points in the wider system.
For that reason, he believes the industry must rethink how it makes its case, not only to policymakers and regulators, but directly to consumers. The most persuasive message may no longer be about tax receipts, employment or market structure. It may instead be a simpler proposition: if gambling is to remain a legitimate form of entertainment, the safest place for consumers is within licensed, controlled and accountable environments.
None of this leads Purdy to a pessimistic conclusion. If anything, he sounds unusually optimistic, provided the discussion becomes more evidence-led and less agenda-driven. The technology exists to improve interventions further. Standards in the regulated sector are stronger than they were. And if industry, regulators and policymakers can keep the consumer at the centre of decision-making, then meaningful progress remains possible.
In that sense, his position is strikingly pragmatic. Responsible gambling is not a side issue, not a communications exercise and not a burden to be managed. Nor, in his view, will it be advanced primarily through generic campaigns that create visibility without necessarily delivering effect. It is a test of whether the regulated sector can prove its long-term value; to customers, to policymakers and to society.
For Purdy, the answer begins with something simpler and more demanding than a slogan: better evidence, clearer distinctions, and the right conversation with the right customer at the right time.
