BGC's Wes Himes discusses UK gaming industry under current COVID-19 lockdown

In an exclusive interview with Online Bingo, Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) spokesperson Wes Himes shared insights on the UK gambling industry under the current national lockdown.

In a two-part series, Hannah Timoney interviewed Himes to discuss the successes of the BGC and its continued mission to raise awareness for gambling harm. 

In the first of the two interviews, Himes discussed the success of the BGC since its foundation, and how the aims of the standards body have changed since the effects of coronavirus and lockdown shook the industry. 

He talked about the BGC’s “extraordinarily positive feedback” over the year and praised the BGC’s implementation of new safer gambling tools, such as the whistle-to-whistle ban and the ad-tech code which increased the sensitivity level for access to age-related products on social media. He also hints that “there will be a number of other measures coming out around bonuses”, though did not share what that could entail. 

The second interview focused on the national lockdowns. Most notably, Himes spoke on the BGC’s call for land-based casinos to reopen during the tier system late last year, which he justified by insisting that casinos had “invested a tremendous amount of time and resources” into putting precautionary measures in place which were sufficient enough to mitigate infection risks. 

He assures these measures will continue if and when land-based venues are allowed to reopen, which he is eager to happen, saying: "we are committed to continuing to explore with the government, as and when the time comes, what we can do to ensure that those premises can open."

He went on to express confidence in the regulations venues have in place to protect players from over gambling, whether that behavior is caused by the stresses of the pandemic or not. He said: "these are the types of measures that we continue to raise standards on, these do help provide a very safe environment of play to the customers."

Editor of Online Bingo Max Wright, said: "we’re thrilled to be able to speak to important members of the industry like Wes, and offer our readers some deeper context into issues like tackling problem gambling and improving legislation, which can sometimes be portrayed in an entirely negative light by the wider media."

Online Bingo will continue to provide our audience of bingo and slots fans with informed insights from important gambling industry figureheads in order to shine a light on the decision making that affects gameplay and protects players from harm.