YGAM, the UK-based charity that works to inform, educate and safeguard young people against problematic gambling and social gaming, will be using its appearance at ICE London (4-6 February, ExCeL London, UK) to outline to the industry the ambitious targets it has set for 2020. Under the leadership of chief executive and co-founder Lee Willows, YGAM has set out an agenda which will see it work with at least 3,000 educational organisations to deliver practitioner workshops, engaging with approximately 600,000 young and vulnerable people in 2020. It will also seek to extend its student programme to 25 universities, reaching approximately 175,000 students, as well as establishing a target of reaching a minimum of 5,000 parents in 2020. YGAM’s trading subsidiary YGAM Innovation will continue to provide best-in-class, City & Guilds certified training to customer facing colleagues in the gambling industry and related sectors in collaboration with Betknowmore UK.

Speaking ahead of YGAM’s appearance as part of the Consumer Protection Zone at ICE London, Lee Willows said: “2020 is YGAM’s sixth anniversary and we feel that is well-worth celebrating. We have an exemplar team of 26 employees, which is due to increase to 42 in Q1. Working in collaboration with members of the Betting & Gaming Council and GamCare, we are going to deploy a high-population, national education programme that will see us jointly deliver at least one session of gambling awareness to all 11-19 year olds in Britain over the next four years.

“Our Parent and Families work will be enhanced with support from Lottoland, whom we worked with in 2019 to develop a pilot with the support of Playtech. We will be working with GVC and Ascot to further develop our university and student engagement work and we are particularly keen to use our attendance at ICE London to talk to other operators who would be happy to work with YGAM and, in the process, enable us to extend this work further.”

He added: “YGAM has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with Clarion Gaming and, without doubt, ICE London provides an exceptional platform for charities to further raise awareness of their social purpose and to thank their supporters. With initiatives such as the Consumer Protection Zone and the pop-up talks around safer gambling and social responsibility across the show floor, ICE London continues to pioneer, lead and set the benchmark. It enables all organisations to not only take stock of current issues but, as importantly, to plan for the future.”