The Committee is chaired by Non- Executive Director, Brian Harris, and its other members are Non-Executive Director Sean O'Connor, and the Company's General Counsel, Daniel Talisman, who also acts as the Committee's Secretary. Sean O'Connor has resigned as a Director from the Board (and from his committee memberships, of which the Social Responsibility Committee is one) with effect from 16 December 2011. The Board intends to review the composition of all committees (including the Social Responsibility Committee) following the release of the Company's financial year results on 5 October 2011. The Committee met five times during the last financial year. The Head of Compliance and the Group Head of Human Resources attend its meetings and the Group Chief Executive is appraised of the Committee's work at least twice in the course of the year.
The Committee is responsible for reviewing the Company's policies on corporate social responsibility and stimulating Group-wide best practice on matters including age verification, fraud, money laundering, responsible gaming, self-exclusion and privacy.
Appropriate recommendations are made to the Company's Board. Terms of Reference can be viewed on www.sportingbetplc.com and are available in writing on request.
As a service business, the core of Sportingbet's policies on social responsibility lies in our approach to our customers. All employees are committed to winning and retaining the trust and loyalty of our customers.
The guiding principle behind Sportingbet's policies can be summarised as 'Know Your Customer'. Procedures to achieve this mean far more than merely collecting documentary evidence of people's identities. It is about understanding their individual requirements, appreciating concerns and closely researching their patterns of behaviour.
Knowing one's customers and creating profiles of their activities and preferences leads to targeted and appropriate marketing strategies. This lies at the heart of the Company's Customer Relationship Management polices.
The way different customers spend money and what they spend it on provides an overall understanding of their motivation. For almost all of the Company's customers online gambling is an entertainment pastime, and Sportingbet's products, promotions and culture make their relationship with the Company an enjoyable experience.
It is the small minority, however, who may be potential fraudsters, underage gamblers or problem players that result in the need for comprehensive systems and procedures to protect the Company and, often, the customer. Of course, nothing can ever be entirely secure against determined offenders, but the Company commits much time and investment to finding organisational and software driven approaches to excluding the vulnerable and identifying fraud.
With multi-player environments such as poker, the Company is particularly vigilant about the risk of collusion or irregular fund movements between participants. Systems have been designed to highlight unusual or concerning patterns of play.
Sportingbet has selected URU and Aristotle as independent third party suppliers to provide online age and identity verification services. Customers' registration details are verified against third party suppliers' databases to ensure that they are over 18 years old. These databases utilise data harvested from a variety of global governmental and corporate official records containing known individuals aged over 18 only.