Gordon Moody has emphasised the importance of the role of the third sector as safer gambling frameworks move into a new era in the UK. The treatment and support charity has issued its response to a misunderstanding by the NHS at the GambleAware Conference in London.
The conference was the first after confirmation of the new statutory levy and the application of £2/£5 stake limits in the UK, which Gambling Minister Baroness Twycross underlined will ensure Britain has the safest gambling environments.
As the landscape unfolds the NHS will be positioned as the Chief Commissioner with the goal of improving the accessibility, quality, and impact of services tackling gambling-related harms by addressing the individual needs of local communities.
However, the GambleAware conference provided a stage to emphasise just how crucial collaboration will be moving forward and why it’s so vital that the third sector continues to play a crucial role in safeguarding players.
In spite of this, Dr Claire Murdoch, National Mental Health Director, NHS England, surprisingly took aim at the industry and pinpointed Gordon Moody, for “stoking demand and preying on the vulnerable”, having apparently confused the non-profit with an operator.
She later took to X to state the comments “badly reflected Gordon Moody’s position on industry. Rushing. I want to thank you for great work. Happy to meet to further address your important questions on procurement and hear more about your work”.
Gordon Moody provided CasinoBeats with the following statement in response: “We are pleased that Dr Claire Murdoch quickly clarified her comment about Gordon Moody made at the recent GambleAware conference during her In Conversation session with GambleAware CEO, Zoe Osmond. We look forward to meeting with Dr Murdoch to explain the work Gordon Moody has been doing since 1971 to help people reclaim and rebuild their lives free from gambling-related harms.
“Gordon Moody is the expert by experience in the gambling harm treatment space. Our unique programmes are delivered by highly qualified professionals who are equipped to focus not just on gambling harm, but also on other comorbidities. We carry out comprehensive assessments that help us integrate appropriate therapies into personalised treatment plans that address each service user’s unique needs.
“The new commissioning framework will fundamentally change how treatment services are funded. It is vitally important that the framework takes into account the work of organisations like Gordon Moody, as well as those within the NGSN and the wider third sector.”
Edging closer and closer to the new year, iGaming Daily’s SEO expert, Ivana Flynn, joined the podcast for a special episode to recap an landmark year and look ahead to what’s coming for the sector in 2025.
She was joined by Emilio Takas, Head of SEO at Gentoo Media, who echoed Flynn’s sentiment that 2024 saw the abuse of AI-created content get “out of hand” and as a result, companies will need to be more organised in how they are using AI.
Emilio said: “We saw that AI if it’s of a good quality can still rank. However, when you produce that on such a big scale, then it was a matter of time before Google began to start evaluating it again and training the language learning models that they use.
“What people didn’t think about was the cost of AI. Because when AI started, they were saying I’m not going to have content creators anymore, I’m just going to use AI. But in 2024, we how expensive the advanced use of AI is and if you sum it up at the end, that cost’s [the same] as six to 10 people in total.
“I don’t think we’re going to see websites coming out of the blue with 10,000 pages created by AI and, even if they do, I don’t expect to see them in search engine result pages (SERPs) anymore.”
Ivana added that due to the rising cost of AI content, it could become more expensive than hiring trained copywriters.
Also in 2024, Ivana noted there was a rise in the use of black hat SEO techniques such as traffic manipulation, CTR manipulation and 301 redirects.
In response, Google has developed its detection technology to try mitigate these practices and improve its algorithm.
“We know that Google is trying to detect [black hat SEO] for years and it’s just getting better,” explained Ivana.
“It’s announced with every update that those practices are not good and are going to be punished. As well, they are starting to understand traffic manipulation and pick up on it because we abused it one step too far and websites using this sooner or later start to disappear.”
Looking ahead to 2025, the pair predict that AI will become an even bigger part of how a search engine functions, through the development of tools such as AI overviews.
As a result, websites will need to focus on developing brands rather than relying on keywords to rank high on search engines.
Flynn said: “Brand is important. You can promote it on social media and people can start to recognise the brand start to love or hate the brand and they can [have feelings] about the brand. The brand becomes viral and creates traffic so you don’t have to do any tricks to it.
“Sooner or later, we’re going to have [AI overviews] and it’s going to be all about brands and mentions. If you have Casino12345, it’s not a brand because you’re going to have Casino123456 as well. It’s not a brand to build and it’s not a brand to love.
“AI overviews are all about brand awareness. We know that AI overviews in Google are being trained on YouTube, Reddit and Wikipedia so you need to be there. You then stand a chance to have a brand mention and from there you can start to rank.”
Emilio concluded by saying that when using AI marketers need to understand its purpose as when used correctly it “can do miracles”.
To listen to this episode click here or search for ‘iGaming Daily’ wherever you listen to your podcasts.
