Simon Westbury: 1xCare Sets Priorities for Player Protection

1xCare at SBC Summit Lisbon 2026

How would you describe 1xCare’s participation in SBC Summit Lisbon 2026? What were the main highlights of the event for your team, and how important was it to raise awareness of responsible gambling and player protection within the industry?

We came to Lisbon with all four members of the Advisory Committee, and the centrepiece was a Stage 5 session, moderated by Ted Menmuir of SBC, that used 1xCare’s launch as its case study. It asked whether safer gambling programmes can withstand independent examination.

Around the panel, committee members gave a series of media interviews. Raising awareness matters, but it is the easy part. The industry already knows player protection is important. What it needs now is evidence that programmes reduce harm. As I said on stage, if we don’t deliver, the trust isn’t going to be there.

Evidence and Industry Collaboration

1xCare was launched to promote coordinated, evidence-informed and human-centred approaches to gambling-related harm. What key conversations or insights emerged during SBC Summit Lisbon regarding responsible gambling and player protection? Did the event open opportunities for collaboration with industry stakeholders?

The conversation that mattered most was about evidence. We went to Lisbon having worked with SBC Insights on a forthcoming report on global trends in safer gambling research, and its findings shaped our discussions. They are uncomfortable. According to the report, most of the research the sector relies on comes from five English-speaking markets and focuses on clinical questions.

The decisions regulators face in growing markets concern product design, advertising and debt. That gap came up repeatedly. So did a second point: credibility should be judged on method, not only on who paid. Being human-centred means starting from the player’s real situation, in their market and their language, and the evidence does not yet reach many of them. In collaboration, yes. Lisbon opened conversations we intend to pursue. We will name partners when agreements are signed, not before.

Progress, Governance and Industry Challenges

As a new organisation, what progress has 1xCare made so far in advancing its mission? What have been the main achievements and challenges since its launch, and how has the industry responded to its approach to responsible gambling and player protection?

1xCare launched on 30 June at iGB Live, and we named the Advisory Committee in July. The first achievement is structural. 1xCare is a Cyprus-registered non-profit with Advisory Committee oversight, funded by the owner of the 1xBet brand, and we say so plainly. The committee covers regulation and law, public policy, and sport, and its members now represent 1xCare in their own right. We also start from evidence: the four-part research series produced with SBC Media benchmarked player protection in Western Europe, Africa and Latin America. The main challenge is obvious. People are sceptical of an initiative funded by an operator brand, and they should be. We have taken that question in public, including on a podcast built around it. The response has been broadly constructive, and the scepticism fair. Governance was the first test, and the easier one. Delivery is the second.

Priorities for the Remainder of 2026

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, what are 1xCare’s main priorities and objectives? Are there any upcoming initiatives, partnerships or projects planned to strengthen player protection and promote more effective approaches to preventing gambling-related harm?

Our priority for the rest of the year is turning commitments into work that can be examined. In research, we will commission our first projects with reputable institutions and set up a small grants programme for academic study, and we have committed to publishing at least one open-access insight report. In education, sport remains central, because it reaches people that public health messaging does not.

In technology, we are preparing pilots of earlier, behaviour-based intervention, and nothing launches without legal and compliance review. In support, a Spanish-language online therapy service for Latin America and Europe is in preparation, subject to final agreement.

Every partnership remains subject to due diligence. In November, Sissel, Chris and I speak at SiGMA World in Rome. All of this feeds our first Annual Impact Report, due by June 2027. That is the date against which we should be judged.