NCPG Awarded HRI and Seminole Gaming with a Corporate Social Responsibility Award

The National Council on Problem Gambling announced earlier this week that Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming have won the Corporate Social Responsibility Award.

The Corporate Social Responsibility award

Earlier this week, the National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) has announced that Hard Rock International and Seminole Gaming have won the Corporate Social Responsibility Award. The award is the result of the PlayersEdge program aiming at changing the casino culture. The program was released by Hard Rock International in December 2019. This is actually the second Corporate Social Responsibility Award from NCPG received by Seminole Gaming as it won one before back in 2014.

Commenting on the subject, Jim Allen, Chairman of Hard Rock International and CEO of Seminole Gaming said: “We want to thank the National Council on Problem Gambling for this award and for recognizing the PlayersEdge program.” Allen did not miss to say: “We also want to acknowledge the Florida Council for Compulsive Gambling, our Vice President of Global Social Responsibility, Paul Pellizzari, and Dr. Rory Reid of UCLA for their help in creating the PlayersEdge training.“

HRI – the First to Release an Effective Gambling Education Program

Currently, Hard Rock International operates in 76 countries across the globe and has the staggering amount of 256 venues. The venues include hotels, casinos, Rock Cafes and Shops which are owned or managed by HRI. This makes HRI one of the most recognized brands in the world. With that in mind, a company with such strong presence on the market, decided to introduce its PlayersEdge program last year. 

With PlayersEdge, the HRI brand launched the first gambling education and literacy program. The program is especially designed for the North America and the international markets. A part of the program includes features that offer education for any type of gambler – from newcomers to gamblers at risk. In contrast, programs offered by other brands only focus on the gamblers which are at risk or gamblers with already existing gambling problems.

PlayersEdge – for Gamblers by Gamblers

The innovative approach which HRI took when creating the PlayersEdge program stands out for the award which the company received. While in general, the public tunes out messages about responsible gambling, HRI’s program took a different approach.

Back upon its release in 2019, Paul Pellizzari, Vice President of Global Social Responsibility for HRI said: “We built PlayersEdge by listening to gamblers.” He added that the company wanted to communicate the right information to gamblers by understanding how they think and behave when in casinos. By examining different player types, the company is able to identify risk profiles and target information more precisely, said Pellizzari. This brings the ultimate result of preventing problem gambling before its start.