Director General Erwin van Lambaart noted: “We don’t want to make money off people who have problems with gambling-related issues. We have a responsibility that we put into practice and that we take it very seriously.”
PLAYSPONSIBLE ACADEMY 2023
A Day That's All About Playsponsible
Casinos Austria & Austrian Lotteries Group employees met with experts to discuss their experiences at the Casino Baden.
Over 200 of our Group’s employees took part in the new “playsponsible Academy” on April 18, 2023. We call it new because the event was operated as the “Responsible Gaming Academy” until 2019 – before the forced break due to the Covid pandemic. This year, the content was expanded to include important areas such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental Social Governance (ESG).
Director General Erwin van Lambaart had this to say about the objectives of the playsponsible Academy:
“To 99 percent of our guests and gaming participants, we’re an entertainment company. We don’t want to make money off people who struggle with gambling-related issues. We want to offer our guests some pleasure and a nice evening and, of course, a chance to win a prize. With playsponsible and the current Academy, we demonstrate that we really put our responsibility into practice and that we take it very seriously.”
Experts from a variety of areas
The event at Casino Baden was also attended by representatives from advisory facilities, supervisory authorities as well as the owners. Accordingly, the Academy’s programme was quite diverse. A special focus was placed on international best practices from the Responsible Gaming sector and parallels from similar industries in understanding and dealing with such responsibilities.
The speakers
Dr. Kurosch Yazdi-Zorn, Head of the Department of Psychiatry at Kepler University Hospital in Linz, used functional magnetic resonance images to provide insights into neurobiological processes that take place in the brains of healthy players compared to pathological players.
Philipp Gaggl, BA, ESG Director at PwC Austria, explained the path from philanthropy via CSR to ESG. After all, unlike CSR, ESG is no longer based on a voluntary mindset. There’s a need for a structured implementation of ESG objectives and – as a result – anchoring ESG in the strategic goals of the Group.
A highly informative and interesting exchange on the topic of the risk potential of the product as well as handling and dealing with it responsibly was conducted by Dr. Gabriela-Maria Straka, Director of Corporate Affairs & ESG Sustainability of Brau Union Österreich.
Dr. Oliver Scheibenbogen from the Institute for Social Aesthetics and Mental Health, Sigmund Freud Private University / Anton Proksch Institute, explained the interdependence between different types of addiction.
Laura Da Silva Gomes, Director of Silverfish CSR Ltd., maintained that sustainability and ESG are not about what you do with the money you made, but how you make the money. Any potentially harmful effects must be avoided as far as possible in the course of business operations. She also demonstrated best-practice examples regarding how education for responsible behaviour or a potential change towards responsible behaviour can be made.
The employees of the Casinos Austria and Austrian Lotteries Group were all able to come away from this intensive day with numerous new inputs, ideas and suggestions for prudent and responsible handling in their respective areas.
