EPIC hire Online Gaming and eSports consultant
EPIC Risk Management has today announced that Jonathan Peniket has joined the company as Online Gaming and eSports consultant.
Jonathan’s role will be to help EPIC expand their work in minimising gambling-related harm into the eSports and gaming landscape with a particular focus in delivering sessions in the company’s education and professional sports pillars in the UK, Europe, and the USA.
The use of loot-boxes and in-gaming spending continues to fall under more scrutiny from lawmakers. Belgium has already prohibited the use of loot boxes in games in 2018, and gaming-rating agency Pegi is also promising clearer and more informative ratings to warn if a game has loot boxes and other random paid-for items.
“I am proud and excited to be joining this team as a Gaming and eSports consultant,” said Jonathan Peniket. “EPIC contacted me after I told my story about loot box addiction on the BBC earlier this year. I feel that it is helping me to make a real difference in educating on the very real dangers of gambling within video games. Though gaming maybe a slightly new angle for EPIC, it is one that the company takes seriously, and I am grateful to be able to use my expertise to help it to tackle issues within gaming.”
“We’re delighted to bring Jonathan into EPIC Risk Management,” said Paul Buck, CEO at EPIC Risk Management.
“Jonathan brings to EPIC his own Lived Experience and is a passionate advocate for educating younger people and their significant others of the potential dangers of online gaming and loot-boxes.
“The eSports and gaming landscape is an area that is receiving more and more scrutiny and the recent House of Lords Gambling Committee calls for evidence and discussions concerning video game loot boxes in a real signifier of that. We feel that with Jonathan on-board, added to a new advisory board of leading experts to be announced in the coming days, we have someone who can help shape our approach and help connect with an extremely important demographic.”
Helping EPIC cut-through to a demographic more accustomed to gaming and eSports is something that EPIC Risk Management’s Director of Educational Programmes Patrick Foster believes will benefit the organisation.
“We work with some incredible partners in the education sector such as the Boarding Schools Association, HMC – the professional Association of heads of the world’s leading independent schools – and in our feedback with them, they have asked for us to explore educational sessions around eSports and gaming with feedback from school’s being that this topic needs to be at the forefront of sessions to their pupils.
“Again, in our Professional Sports pillar where we work with the likes of the Chelsea FC, Arsenal FC, Manchester City FC, English Football League (EFL), Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), and the Rugby Players’ Association, we have had similar feedback and requests for their players. With someone like Jonathan, we have a young man with Lived Experience, knowledge, and passion to help convey our message.”
EPIC Risk Management is the world’s leading independent gambling harm minimisation consultancy. EPIC raises awareness of gambling-related harm to identify and mitigate the human, financial, brand, and reputational risks that problem gambling can create. Working across 16 countries in the highest risk sectors for gambling-related harm, EPIC is the trusted advisors for gambling education, awareness, strategy, and consultancy across elite sport, education, criminal justice, the armed forces, and selected partners in the gambling industry. EPIC’s clients include the British Army, Barclays Bank, The NFL Players Association, Harvard University, and the English Football League.
