Introduction to SGS

What is the Safe Gaming System?

The Safe Gaming System™ (SGS) is a service designed to protect people who choose to gamble from incurring harm as a result of their gambling. SGS is best described as a "safety net" to protect its registrants from gambling harm. The system is built around the proposition that gambling is a recreational activity (only) that a great number of people enjoy, however, safeguards and controls are essential to avoid the problems that result from excessive or inappropriate gambling, commonly expressed in terms of money lost and/or time spent.

SGS has been designed to provide gamblers with an effective, personalized means to maintain control over their gambling activities. It is a patented, secure system, which assists in avoiding Problem Gambling issues by requiring that all registrants set and maintain a gambling budget, and "pre-purchase" their gambling entertainment.

In short, SGS assists you to control your gambling, rather than allowing your gambling to control you.

When you register for the service, a feature of the system expertly guides you through making decisions about your personal, affordable limits on gambling. Your money and time limits are set in advance, away from the atmosphere of a gambling venue. This allows you to think more rationally and clearly about what your reasonable gambling limits should really be. You fund your SGS account for "budget" periods by pre-purchasing only your affordable limit for gambling, or less.

Once you have registered, you will be issued an SGS secure account access device, such as a "smart" or "dumb" card, which is used to access your pre-funded SGS account for gambling at venues that accept SGS.

Your agreement with SGS provides that you only use the "budgeted" and pre-committed funds in your SGS account for gambling, and nothing more. Once your affordable gambling expenditure limits are reached for any given period, no further funding is available to you until the next "budget" period. In this way, you avoid circumstances where you may gamble with funds or time that you cannot afford to lose. The technical part is an information technology (IT) system that supports this "safety net" process from initial registration through ongoing supervision of limits and other agreed parameters.

If maintaining effective control over your gambling is important to you, then SGS service is a must.

FAQs

What exactly is "problem gambling"?
A. "Problem Gambling" is the term used to describe gambling behavior, which causes disruption in any important life function, whether psychological, physical, social or vocational. This term is generally accepted to include, but is not limited to "Pathological", a.k.a., "Compulsive" gambling. Compulsive Gambling is a progressive addiction characterized by increasing preoccupation with gambling, a need to bet more money more frequently, restlessness or irritability when attempting to stop gambling, "chasing" losses, and loss of control by continuing negative gambling behavior, regardless of the disruption and serious consequences of such behavior.

How extensive is problem gambling and what are the consequences?
A. A US research study, released in 1999, was done by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, in collaboration with three other research groups, on behalf of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. The research group reported that:

" Based upon criteria developed by the American Psychiatric Association, we estimate that about 2.5 million adults are pathological gamblers and another 3 million adults should be considered problem gamblers. Extending these criteria more broadly, 15 million (American) adults are at risk for problem gambling, and about 148 million are low-risk gamblers (about 129 million adults have never gambled)."

"…Pathological and problem gamblers are more likely than other gamblers or non-gamblers to have been on welfare, declared bankruptcy, and to have been arrested or incarcerated."

"…Pathological and problem gamblers in the United States cost society approximately $5 billion per year and an additional $40 billion in lifetime costs for productivity reductions, social services, and creditor losses. However, these calculations are inadequate to capture the intra-familial costs of divorce and family disruption associated with problem and pathological gambling."

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