Celebrating International Women's Day 2022: #BreakTheBias
EPIC Risk Management proudly champions all women within the organisation on International Women’s Day and beyond and has welcomed many new female faces to the team this past year as the business continues to grow globally.
EPIC now has nine female team members across the business located in the UK and USA, working within safer gambling, professional sport, research and evaluation, training and development, marketing and communications, and business and administration.
This year’s theme for International Women’s Day 2022 is #BreakTheBias… imagining a gender equal and inclusive world, free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
The globally leading gambling harm minimisation consultancy aims to tackle the issues around female gambling addiction and the misconception that ‘gambling harm does not affect women similarly to men’. All at EPIC choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality; as head of delivery (education and CSR), Patrick Foster explains that gambling does not discriminate:
“We explain that gambling addiction can target anybody at any time; there’s no set type of person who can become engrossed in this situation.”
Women in gambling is an under-represented area, however EPIC’s predominantly female research and evaluation team are on a mission to gain further knowledge and understanding in this also under-researched space, conducting ongoing research to better understand how gambling addiction affects females, especially athletes in three main sports, football, cricket, and rugby.
EPIC acknowledge that the route men have into gambling harm is usually a very different experience; further highlighted by the concerning figures recently brought to public attention via Gamble Aware.
“I trust that this ongoing research will benefit how EPIC can respond to the risk of gambling harm among women,” says Anca-Maria Gherghel, research coordinator at EPIC, who is one of our highly-motivated female staff and directly involved in the ongoing investigation into the topic.
“I hope that the results could potentially be used for policy making and changes.”
It’s extremely important to break down the stereotypes surrounding gambling harm. EPIC’s partner Mark Murray of WHYSUP commented:
“Through our work across education and working in treatment, we have seen first-hand an increase of women who are struggling with a gambling addiction.
“However, I believe there will be many more women out there that will be struggling and yet to come forward.”
We aim to #BreakTheBias surrounding female gambling addiction and will continue to assist women to be in a position of improved understanding through education and prevention and to seek further support if in need.
