The betting and gaming industry has an opportunity to work collaboratively on diversity and inclusion to stem growth, according to Lottoland’s Learning and Development Partner, Sophie Wood.
Also working as the firm’s Co-Lead on Diversity and Inclusion, Wood noted that whilst individual companies act competitively in most operational areas, diversity and inclusion should be an open debate as no singular company should benefit from it.
Speaking to SBC at Betting on Sports Europe, Wood stated: “The field of diversity and inclusion is ripe for collaboration between companies.
“In our marketplace, we’re really competitive; we don’t want to give up our intelligence, but with diversity and inclusion, there is no downside to collaborating and sharing best practices.”
The Lottoland delegate also told SBC that the industry must change its attitude on diversity and inclusion with regards to engaging with its core customer base.
In particular, she explained that younger generations have a strong social conscience and are aware of different cultures, therefore more likely to spend money with companies who engage with differences.
“It’s all about projecting your values to your customers, especially younger customers,” explained Wood.
“Hopefully, gone are the days where you are presenting products at slot machines of semi-naked women which might titillate a small demographic of your customer base.
“Actually, you could have diverse themes in your products. Why don’t you have Pride slots in Pride week? You can engage with a whole new demographic of customers that you’re not necessarily appealing to at the moment and start to change the image and representation of the industry.”
Lottoland has implemented new diversity and inclusion strategies to create a more inclusive culture amongst its employees.
Wood explained that an internal survey found that amongst the 34 different nationalities that work at Lottoland, those not from the UK were offended when their name was mispronounced, sparking change in the company.
“We’ve listened to those people. One of the quick wins that we’ve put in straight away is that at Lottoland we’re encouraging people to phonetically spell their name on their email signature.
“If we’re all doing that at Lottoland, then if someone has a name which is more complex to pronounce, then nobody has an excuse anymore to mispronounce those names.”