"Hacia un mercado de juego más sostenible" - Šimon Vincze

Šimon Vincze, Director of Sustainability and Safer Gaming at Casino Guru, joins the Affiliate Grand Slam interviews

Šimon Vincze describes Casino Guru as a sincere source of casino reviews and a database of online casinos; It informs rather than promotes, they focus on user satisfaction and never encourage play. He talks about several of his projects, including Casino Guru Academy, the self-exclusion initiative, the complaint center, educational content, and a fair gaming code. Below, we tell you their story.

What is Casino Guru and what is its history?

From a business point of view, Casino Guru is an affiliate website with the largest database of online casinos and bonuses offered by them. We specialize in objective reviews that help users choose reliable and trustworthy casinos to play at.

However, we aim to do much more than that, by following our values and attempting to change the gambling industry for the better, through projects such as the Casino Guru Academy and the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative, as well as our Complaint Resolution Centre, educational content and fair gaming codex.

All of these efforts are all about the values that have been a part of Casino Guru since the beginning. The project was started by two good friends who worked as software developers and were tasked with designing and creating software for online casinos. After learning about the industry, they decided to create a website about online casinos and used their skills to make it stand out.

They decided to base it on structured data, which is an approach that allows us to work with data and base our reviews on objective information. The first version was launched in May 2016, and now, more than 5 years later, Casino Guru is one of the largest websites of its kind on the internet.

What is the role of Casino Guru in the online industry?

With the many things we do, it’s hard to pinpoint a single function, but I can try to summarize the most important ones.

Casino Guru is a database of online casinos, casino games, and casino bonuses. As one of the largest resources in online gambling, people come to our website for information.

Most importantly, we are also a source of honest casino reviews, which follow a strict methodology and focus on objective data and parameters. We read the fine print, so players don’t have to. These reviews help our visitors to truly understand how reliable, fair and secure any casino is, which is what sets us apart from other websites with casino reviews.

Our goal is to be the driving force behind the changes that make online gambling safer for everyone. The nonprofit projects I lead, such as the Casino Guru Academy and the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative, strive to do just that. I truly believe that both players and companies operating in the sector can benefit from a more sustainable gambling market, and I hope that our efforts will move things in the right direction.

What sets you apart from other affiliates and why do you think it’s a unique site?

I would say that our approach of informing rather than promoting is one of the things that sets us apart. Our goal is to provide our visitors with the best information possible, so they can make sound and informed decisions when deciding where to play, which games to play, how to play them, or whether to bet. We never pressure our visitors to gamble. On the contrary, we tell things as they really are. If we consider a casino or a game to be bad, we simply say so. We think it’s really important in this industry.

Our methodical approach to almost everything is another differentiating factor. We use refined processes for our casino reviews and their regular updates, allowing us to remain objective, minimize errors, and produce reproducible results. As a result, users can trust the information they find on our site.

In addition, I believe that our global presence is something unique. Casino Guru is available in 17 languages, allowing users from most parts of the world to access casino information in a language they understand. This is also present in our forum, where users can discuss topics in any language thanks to automatic translations.

What approach do you have? What is your goal?

To sum up our approach in a few words, I would say that it is to do everything to the best of our ability and stay in line with the values that have been part of Casino Guru since the beginning. By focusing on user satisfaction, we believe that players should be able to enjoy online casino games fairly and safely. Being strict with casinos and pushing them to be better will benefit this goal, in our opinion.

We hope that this approach and our values will help us achieve our goal of becoming the world’s most visited website about online casinos. In addition to the obvious trading benefits, this will also help us to help as many players as possible and influence their playing decisions in a positive way. And I would say that we are on the right track.

You judge player complaints according to a fair game code. Can you tell us more about this and how you define player safety and fair play?

The main idea of the fair gaming code and how we approach complaints is fairness. We always try to find the best and fairest way to deal with the problems that arise between casinos and players. From our point of view, just because a casino has something written in its terms and conditions, it doesn’t mean it’s right.

For example, we have seen casinos state in their terms and conditions that they may, at their sole discretion, decide to close a player’s account and keep all the funds that were in it. Most players don’t read T&Cs (which is why we read them when we review a casino), and from a legal point of view, the casino may be entitled to apply this rule. After all, the player has accepted the T&Cs upon registration. However, we would do our best to help the player if the casino wanted to use this rule against them, as it is absolutely unfair.

Now, of course, this is an extreme example, as I’m sure most people would agree that it was unfair, but there are many problematic situations where the answer is unclear. To deal with them, we hold weekly meetings where we discuss these situations and try to find the best way to resolve them. We examine cases and rules not only from a legal point of view, but also from the point of view of fairness and ease of use.

This meeting is attended by the entire claims team, as well as other people who have something to say. For example, I participate in these meetings to help with complaints that have to do with self-exclusion and responsible gambling.

Once we agree on the best way to proceed, we know how to deal with similar complaints in the future. If necessary, we also describe the situation and our point of view in our fair play codex. It’s not all described there yet, as things are still developing and it takes time to write and translate them, but we’re working on it.

The reviews are oriented following a strict methodology that is not for sale. Can you tell us more about this? Does it help you make reviews fairer for players?

Haha, I see you’ve read the “About Us” page. Well, I certainly think so. I think that we as an industry have to hold casinos accountable for their actions. If casinos don’t treat players fairly, I think we need to point that out and encourage them to improve. And that’s what we try to do with our reviews.

Our methodology has been established so that reviews and ratings are completely unbiased. They are strictly based on the data entered into our system by the casino’s review team. We check the casino’s website, look for complaints about it, read their T&Cs in full to see if they’re fair, and so on. All of this is used to calculate the casino’s reputation rating, which essentially describes the likelihood that a player (who has been playing in good faith and without any ill intent) will be paid without any problems.

All of this means that the casino has to change something to get a better rating from us. If they don’t like bad reviews, they can remove unfair rules that have earned them a bad rating, or they can rectify the situation with players who have been mistreated by them and have filed a complaint. And hundreds of casinos have done so over the years.a

At Casino Guru, you have a complaint resolution center. How did it start and what is the idea behind the center? How big is it?

Complaints have always been part of our methodology. At first, however, we only searched the internet and other gambling websites for complaints about the casinos we reviewed. In addition, we continue to receive emails with complaints from abused players long before we launched the complaint resolution center.

Considering the complaints we’ve seen handled on other websites and the ones we’ve been getting in our inbox, we realised that we could help players by launching our own complaint centre and doing it better than everyone else: looking at issues also in terms of fairness and ease of use. So, we thought, designed, programmed and put it into action.

Since then, the number of complaints we receive each month has not stopped growing. Throughout 2021, we have registered 5,532 new claims on our website, of which 1,631 have been closed as resolved, with a total disputed amount returned to players of $4,243,557.

Now, I’m not sure about the numbers of other websites and forums that help players with casino complaints, but I think we’re definitely one of the biggest, if not the biggest.

You produce educational videos to give players a chance to learn and help prevent further problems. Tell us a little more about that.

Yes, we do. We create educational videos about the game and publish them on our YouTube channel as well as on our website. There’s a lot of gaming-related video content out there on the internet, but unfortunately, I’d argue that most of it doesn’t do a good job in terms of responsible gambling. Just look for the best strategies for slots, for example, and many of the videos you’ll see will try to tell you that you can consistently win at slots. And that, of course, is not true.

And I don’t mention this example by chance. We are currently finishing our own video on slot strategies, which goes hand in hand with our article on the site on the same topic. We make it absolutely clear that these strategies won’t help you beat the casino, but they can help you play slots more effectively and lose less in the long run. And we ended that video by saying that the best strategy is not to play slots at all, at least from a mathematical perspective. We are doing our best to spread the word that gambling should be seen as entertainment that costs something, not as a way to make money.

Personally, I think this gives us a slight disadvantage, as people are more likely to click on sensationalist content that promises huge and sure profits, but I also think our approach is correct. If we help at least some people understand how things really work and that gambling is not a way to make money, it will all be worth it.

And I’m sure our videos have helped at least some people who were looking for information about gambling. Our channel currently has over 900 subscribers, and our videos are getting more and more views every month. And, since the number of videos on our channel is quite small so far, I expect these numbers to start growing even faster once we have more video content.

The Casino Guru website is available in 17 languages and features a multilingual forum. What value does it provide?

When we were designing our forum, we spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to do it. And considering all the languages that Casino Guru is available in, we’ve decided to implement automatic translations that allow players to communicate seamlessly even if they don’t speak the same language.

And I think it brings a lot of value, especially for people who don’t speak English. If you think about it, it’s pretty easy to find several large gambling forums on the internet. However, non-English speakers find it more difficult to find an active forum to discuss gambling with other players in a language they understand. That’s where our forum shines. Break the language barrier and bring together players from all over the world.

And I think having these communication channels accessible is very important for a lot of players. In addition to the usual things that casino players like to comment on, such as their favorite slots and their biggest winnings, they also have the opportunity to talk about their problems with casinos and share their stories and experiences with gambling, including problems related to problem gambling.

Your database has more than 3,000 casino pages. How do you keep it all up to date?

In reality, there are already more than 4,000. And yes, it’s a big challenge to keep all the information up to date, but we do what we can. First of all, we periodically go through the casinos in our database and more or less check them again. This means that we check all the data we have about the casino and make sure it’s true, fixing things that have changed since we last reviewed the casino.

In addition, many casinos contact us whenever something important changes, such as a new language version, a new payment method, etc. Whenever we find something new, we add it to the review, but the regular big updates to the review happen regardless of that.

How do you maintain the relationship with all the operators?

I’m sure there’s a lot of work behind it, given the size of our database and our global reach, but I have to admit that I personally don’t see this business area too far away. We have a team that communicates with operators, discusses the conditions of our cooperation, and takes care of finances.

This team is completely separate from our casino review team, which collects information about casino websites and enters it into our database. This information is used to calculate our reputation ratings and create our reviews.

We have set it up on purpose, so that our reviews and ratings remain completely unbiased and are not influenced by the financial aspect of our cooperation with a given casino.

How do you help make the game safer? Your goal is to create a system of self-exclusion. Can you tell us more about this?

Many of our activities are about helping to make online gambling safer. I’ve already mentioned many of them, such as objective reviews, fair gaming code, pushing casinos to be better, the Casino Guru Academy, and the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative.

In dealing with player complaints and other issues present in the gambling industry, we have observed that current self-exclusion options, which are mostly limited to single-casino self-exclusion and national self-exclusion schemes, do not effectively protect vulnerable and addicted players against further gambling harm.

We have seen many stories of addicted gamblers who used domestic systems such as GAMSTOP in an effort to block their access to gambling, but later returned to playing on foreign operators. The problem with systems like GAMSTOP is that they are limited to a single jurisdiction, while players can easily find casinos from other countries that are unaware of their self-exclusion and are willing to let them play.

Aware that we will not be able to solve this problem on our own, we have decided to launch the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative to raise awareness of the issue and look for partners who can join the Initiative and help make our vision a reality.

Have you ever been to SiGMA? SiGMA Europe, Asia or Americas, which conference would you like to attend in 2022?

Last year I attended SiGMA Europe in Malta. It was my first time on this small island and I was amazed at how you can live and breathe the game during the event. I would definitely like to return to Malta this year, but I am also interested in the regions of Africa and Asia. That said, my attendance at these events will depend on the priorities of my collaborative projects, most notably the Global Self-Exclusion Initiative.

Tell us a little about yourself: after all, business is done with people, not companies. Your hobbies, your favorite book, your favorite phrase, if you like the game, etc.

I’m interested in eSports because I grew up playing video games and this area is very close to me. I don’t play casino games, but I do bet from time to time when I watch an eSports tournament. With two young children, it is quite difficult to find a good opportunity to play a game myself, but fortunately I get it from time to time.

In addition to work, I spend most of my time with my family or doing sports, especially swimming. I’m a fan of Stoicism, and I’m currently improving my communication skills. That’s where my favorite quote comes from today, or perhaps a piece of advice: “Tell me the time. Don’t invent the clock.”

Read more about the SiGMA Affiliate Grand Slam here.

SiGMA Asia 2022

After all the excitement of the Malta Week 2021 conferences, the SiGMA Group plans to move around the world with destinations like Kyiv andToronto as hubs to attract the best and brightest in the iGaming world together. Our next exhibition will take us to the avant-garde metropolis of the United Arab Emirates for three days of networking, panel discussions and festivities. Stay up to date with the latest and greatest through SiGMA News.