New year, new recruits for EPIC’s Pro Sport Advisory Board
EPIC Global Solutions have announced two new members of its Pro Sport Advisory Board (PSAB) for 2024, with Clint Hangebrauck of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and Tom Jones from the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA) joining the worldwide collective intended to minimize gambling-related harm within elite sport.
The two new additions ensure that the PSAB starts the new year with ten members, who represent sports clubs, governing bodies and the gambling ecosystem, all contributing to the group’s discussions and investigations into how the risk of gambling harm can be reduced among athletes, staff and supporters alike in the world of sport.
Clint Hangebrauck is managing director of enterprise risk management at the NCAA, and has played an integral role in the organization’s mission to provide quality education around gambling harm awareness to student-athletes and staff within its member colleges.
As well as facilitating face-to-face ‘lived experience’ talks from those who have suffered from serious problem gambling issues among NCAA college campuses, he has recently helped to deliver a new sports wagering e-learning module to educate student-athletes about gambling-related harm.
Tom Jones, senior personal development manager at the PCA, replaces his former colleague Nick Denning, who was a founder member of the Pro Sport Advisory Board. Jones’ remit covers all aspects of professional cricket players’ off-field skills development, mental health and wellbeing. As such, providing access to gambling harm minimization education and advice plays a key part in the role he undertakes with many of English cricket’s best-known faces.
Commenting on his appointment to EPIC’s Pro Sport Advisory Board, Clint Hangebrauck explained:
“In a new era of a proliferation of sports betting in the U.S., it’s important to learn from other countries with decades of experience and to break down walls between sporting organizations and other industry experts to work on safeguarding sport collaboratively.
“The PSAB does exactly that, and I look forward to serving on the board.”
Jones, who has been in his current PCA role for seven years, is looking forward to making a valued contribution to the movement, adding:
“Understanding gambling harm is an ongoing challenge in professional cricket and across the whole of society. Contributing to the Pro Sport Advisory Board at EPIC Global Solutions will allow me to offer insight into the factors involved in gambling harm in professional cricket.
“I look forward to contributing to the success of the board through my experiences of delivering education and support to PCA members in this space. It is crucial that professional sports work together to minimize gambling harm through pro-active collaboration and I look forward to working with the board moving forward.”
The EPIC Pro Sport Advisory Board made a significant contribution to the movement towards a safer gambling environment within sport by providing key insight and research into EPIC’s inaugural white paper in 2023. The Gambling Harm Prevention in Sport Review was released to great acclaim at a major industry event at London’s Wembley Stadium in February 2023 and is available now to all sports clubs, player associations, competitions and governing bodies to provide best practice advice and examples on how to protect all individuals in their care from the potential risk of gambling addiction.
“In a new era of a proliferation of sports betting in the U.S., it’s important to learn from other countries with decades of experience and to break down walls between sporting organizations and other industry experts to work on safeguarding sport collaboratively.”
Clint Hangebrauck
Managing Director of Enterprise Risk Management, NCAA
