Building trust and guaranteeing the highest levels of security is now table stakes if you want to have a regulated market presence, says Rune Ören Skarphagen, Head of Security & Privacy at Play’n GO.

For iGaming businesses up and down the value chain, trust is perhaps the most important strategic asset. Without it, everything else very quickly falls apart.

As the Head of Security at Play’n GO, the world’s leading supplier of casino entertainment products to regulated markets, it’s my job to maintain and strengthen this trust with both our partners and the end users. We understand the significance of trust better than most.

Gambling is an industry built upon rapid data flows. It’s also one where users value privacy and security extremely highly. That’s a challenging backdrop against which we must also build trust and deliver large volumes of content to hundreds of partners across dozens of regulated markets.

Of course, Play’n GO has never taken the easy route. When we talk about our commitment to building a sustainable future for iGaming, security is an essential part of this. 

Security and licensing

We’re active in more than 35 regulated jurisdictions around the world, and we’ve spotted an increasing trend among them. Security, in many different forms, is now an explicit expectation of the licensing framework in a growing number of markets.

This makes absolute sense. A licence is only as strong as the security provisions underpinning it, and if regulators cannot be sure that players’ data is protected and systems are robust, then the rest of the conversation soon becomes irrelevant. 

Europe’s GDPR has clearly been a catalyst, not just within the bloc, but in fact across much of the world. Regulators in Europe, North America, South America and beyond now demand demonstrable compliance with data protection rules, breach notification protocols and secure hosting standards. Many require the appointment of dedicated data protection officers.

These are no longer optional, or sales talking points, but rather prerequisite for market access. No operator, supplier nor B2B partner can expect to build a lasting footprint in regulated gambling without being able to show, transparently and consistently, that their security framework not only meets but exceeds these obligations.

Smart business, not box ticking

So, how do we go about meeting these standards?

The first step is internal policies, including protocols that must be put into place. But this is as much about fostering a culture as it is meeting specific requirements.

As we’ve seen in regulated jurisdictions around the world – with the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands being just three recent examples – there’s a clear shift both in the rules we must operate under and the public sentiment towards our industry.

This is why we’ve always felt box ticking can only take you so far. Instead, we’re cultivating a mentality that puts security, data protection and sustainability at the heart of everything.

We call it Trust by Design, and it extends well beyond our security measures and technology. It involves thinking about trust at every stage of the process, from the beginnings of game design, through development, marketing and roll-out to operator partners.

It’s also a question of demonstrating that our understanding of trust goes beyond keeping a player’s data safe. A big part of why Play’n GO has become such a trusted name in our sector is because we’re not afraid to take action on key issues we think are important.

Our decision to never build so-called Bonus Buy mechanics into our games is one example. We’ve conducted extensive research that shows both the public and slot players believe Bonus Buys to be an exploitative and unsustainable feature. 

Can they be extremely profitable? Of course. But we’re aiming at something bigger and longer-term than a GGR boost for the next quarter, as we’ve consistently shown over the last 20 years.

Our recent decision not to supply our games to sweepstakes casinos in the US is another example. We firmly believe that these casinos are threatening the fantastic work we’ve seen across the country by regulators to introduce frameworks that provide for security, data and player protection. And we don’t want to play any role in that.

At Play’n GO, everything we do is built with data protection and security at its core. We see Trust by Design not only as a framework but as a philosophy.

It’s why players choose our 400+ games, why operators rely on us as a partner and why regulators know we take our responsibilities very seriously