Spanish Company Using AI to Battle Problem Gambling
Published on:
Jun/10/2021
SOTOGRANDE, Spain— Jada Gaming is a Spanish software company that is doing revolutionary and innovative work in the Internet gambling industry.
The company is using artificial intelligence (AI) to help those who market and operate online gambling and calls the idea Jada Brain.
According to the company, AI can be used to accurately predict how much an online gambler will win or lose, how long he will play, how likely he’ll be to return after leaving and whether he is abusing bonuses.
But perhaps most importantly, AI can be used to predict whether an online gambler will become a compulsive or ”problem” gambler, in which case the issue can be dealt with before it gets out of hand.
Gambling 911 recently spoke with Josh Tromans-Jones, the chief technology officer of Jada Gaming, about his company and its innovative technology.
Gambling 911: Can you tell us about your company, what products and services you offer and what makes you unique among your competitors?
Josh Tromans-Jones: Jada Gaming was created to solve a series of common struggles within the iGaming industry. Implementation of AI, fraud prevention, responsible gambling, marketing, spending and optimization are just some of those core areas our Jada platform addresses. Jada Brain’s evolution is built from years of industry experience and coming up against the same problems. It was key to recognize these core issues and then design a range of bespoke modules to directly improve them. We wanted to have a comprehensive solution, so for launch there were 11 core modules covering areas like Responsible Gaming, Bonus Abuse and Churn Detection. Jada Brain is designed with independently configurable modules to meet the demands of each operator. This means they can create a solution that’s been chosen for the exact requirements to bring business success. Flexibility and optionality power all of Jada’s modular design. One of our major differentiators from competitors is that we don’t need sensitive customer details, we don’t use front-end integration which can be nullified by disabling java or deleting cache memory of the browser. We also focus on helping gaming businesses going through a data transformation process, aiming at a smarter and more efficient capitalization of their own data.
G9: How long have you been in business and where are you located?
JTJ: The commercial format of the Jada platform has been around for roughly seven months, but the idea behind it is a culmination of years’ worth of work. Jada is based out of Southern Spain, in Sotogrande. Myself and co-founder Alberto Alfieri have close to 25 years’ industry experience between us and a good portion of that time was spent identifying areas of potential growth by analyzing market trends and understanding customer requirements and behavior.
G9: You are the CTO of the company—what is your background in business and in gambling?
JTJ: My industry experience has covered both the operator and affiliate side. Responsibilities included leading business intelligence and analytics teams throughout and most recently holding positions as CIO/CTO at some of the leading gaming companies. My focus in previous roles was to improve business visibility into operations by upgrading reporting, data visualization, and data processing, as well as the use of analytics and techniques such as machine learning to solve complex business problems. The same questions kept resurfacing when speaking to my teams and much of these rested on data that didn’t align. The ambition was to build a solution that could give companies visibility into their operations and provide a turn-key analytics solution to solve recurring business blockers.
G9: Who are some of the major players in gambling or elsewhere that you have deals with and is there anything new coming up?
JTJ: Jada has just struck an exciting three-year deal with Betmotion, the leading Latin American gambling site. The deal will enable Betmotion to integrate the full Jada Brain platform with its suite of bespoke iGaming modules each designed to enhance user experiences. There are ongoing discussions with other platform providers and we are tapping into the land-based market and we’ll be able to announce these once officially signed. It’s key to keep innovating, and we have recently introduced a new tool for affiliates to significantly improve the way they do business. Our business growth will revolve around our operator and affiliate solutions as we work to consistently deliver for our partners.
G9: How specifically do you use artificial intelligence to stem problem gambling?
JTJ: Operators have a duty of care to customers as more of the U.S. regulates it and major sports betting events commence. Creating socially responsible experiences and shielding customers from the harms of addictive gambling should shape every operator’s mission. The recent reports of Michigan’s increased call handle regarding problem gambling serves as a reminder of how important the issue is for the industry. One of Jada Brain’s modules is built specifically for protecting players. The Responsible Gambling engine uses a powerful algorithm to determine a player’s risk of developing into a problem gambler and assigns an appropriate rating so operators can intervene before the situation worsens. There are plenty of complexities when identifying problem gamblers. The building and implementation of algorithms was crafted using information from addiction case studies. Clients benefit from the machine-learning features integrated in the Responsible Gambling engine, which is applied to markers of harm and to handle shifting behavior patterns. Every piece of data is anonymized to strictly adhere to data privacy policy laws. AI provides an uncompromising and independent method to keep players safe in a proactive way, instead of traditional self-exclusion and self-imposed reactive means.
G9: Where do you see the online gambling industry going over the next 10 years, especially your company?
JTJ: We expect to see major changes in the player demographic, due to different global socio-economic situations. This demographic shift will most likely drive a further change in product offering, with e-sports and virtual content becoming even more relevant, alongside Augmented Reality technology. Blockchain’s role will become more prominent, and this will bring necessary changes to compliance, payments and even content. Regulatory procedures will continue to provide the path for industry growth. The U.S., Brazil, Africa, India and potentially China will likely be consolidated markets during the next 10-year period, and this will push the needs for a wider and more global regulation. Taxation is already on the verge of changing with the G7 agreement and this will in time filter down to impact the gambling industry. Regarding Jada, we see our platform enriched in terms of modules and functionalities. The idea is to head towards the concept of an aggregator of services, where Jada will be the brain, using the capabilities and expertise of other specialists. We are currently in talks with AML and KYC specialists in the industry to see how we can implement and optimize those functionalities in Jada Brain.
G9: is there anything else you’d like our readers to know about your company?
JTJ: We would like to highlight how willing we are to listen and to help businesses and regulators. We aim at disrupting the way the iGaming industry uses data and reduce the friction and the headaches that we know very well from experiences. We promise to keep innovating and remain true to these values and mission.
By Tom Somach
Gambling 911 Chief Correspondent
