In a landmark partnership, SIGA, through its business development arm SIGA SOLUTIONS, has joined forces with EPIC Global Solutions, a distinguished SIGA Member, to collaborate to set new standards for safer sports gambling practices. This strategic alliance was formalized in a public ceremony held during the SIGA Summit on Female Leadership in Sport, today in New York.
Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, Global CEO of SIGA and Chairman & CEO of SIGA SOLUTIONS, and Paul Buck, founder and CEO of EPIC Global Solutions, addressed the agreement and the impacts for all Sport Stakeholders during the event. This partnership represents a significant advance in the Sport Industry, aiming to deliver a pioneering suite of services focused on cutting-edge training, education, and capacity building in relation to Sport Betting Integrity. The collaboration brings to the forefront a unique blend of resources, knowledge and expertise and will include initiatives designed to mitigate gambling-related harm and fostering a safer and more responsible gambling environment within the sports ecosystem.
Key offerings include:
- Lived Experience Coaches: Workshops, facilitated by former athletes who have had a previous experience of gambling harm, for athletes and employees, which raise awareness and educate on safer gambling practices.
- Consultancy Services: Tailored advisory services for senior leaders and executives, focusing on commercial betting partnerships, marketing and communications strategies, brand and governance enhancement, gambling policy, and employee welfare.
- Brand/CSR Programmes: Innovative programmes aimed at Sports fans, extending educational outreach into communities through schools, universities, and businesses, promoting responsible gambling and safeguarding the Integrity of Sport.
Emanuel Macedo de Medeiros, SIGA’s Global CEO expressed enthusiasm about the partnership, stating:
“The collaboration with EPIC Global Solutions represents a pivotal moment in our ongoing efforts to safeguard Sport Integrity and combat gambling-related harm. The reality is undeniable: the data regarding the scale, prevalence and impacts of gambling addiction worldwide is as alarming as the case studies are harrowing. The need for concerted action is greater than ever and the time for this action is now. Leveraging the combination of SIGA’s knowledge and EPIC’s expertise, we are set to embark on a transformative journey that will deliver the necessary solutions to safeguard Sport and its participants from harm, particularly those that are most vulnerable or susceptible to exploitation.”
Paul Buck, founder and CEO of EPIC Global Solutions, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the synergy between the two organizations and their shared vision for a safer sports betting landscape:
“EPIC are pleased to be furthering our existing relationship with SIGA in a bid to ensure that a reduction in both gambling-related harm and sporting integrity issues can go hand-in-hand. We have created a strong network of elite partners across global sport, and look forward to supporting even more of the people involved with leading clubs, leagues and governing bodies through this relationship, delivering on the recommendations that we shared with professional sport through the release of our Gambling Harm Prevention in Sport Review white paper last year. We specialize in learning from lived experience, and having built up considerable knowledge around how to help sporting institutions to minimize the risk of gambling harm and related integrity issues, we look forward to sharing this expertise with an ever-growing audience.”
As part of its comprehensive strategy to prevent gambling from adversely affecting athletes, executives employees, fans, and the broader sports integrity and reputation, SIGA, SIGA SOLUTIONS and EPIC Global Solutions encourage all stakeholders to engage with this groundbreaking initiative.
Contact us for more information at info@siga-sport.com.
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ABOUT EPIC Global Solutions
EPIC Global Solutions is a socially driven and commercially sustainable business, with the aim of helping people, and businesses, to avoid the destructive effects of gambling related harm. We do this via education and awareness programmes, independently accredited training and board level down advisory and consultancy. Our expert team, many of whom have lived experience of gambling harm, work directly with the sectors who are statistically and evidentially the highest risk sectors for gambling harm, which has seen us work across professional sport, within schools, the gambling industry, financial services, the Armed Forces and criminal justice system amongst others. To date we have worked across 28 countries and have a growing presence in the USA as sports gambling opens state by state.
Clients in sport include the English Football League, NFL Player Association, Professional Cricketers Association, Rugby Players Association, Major League Soccer and Chelsea FC. The awareness programmes in sport are some of the biggest ever delivered in world sport.
Our uniquely experienced personnel also consult some of the leading gambling operators, regulators and policy makers, helping them to implement measures for industry leading player protection initiatives, as well as training their outwardly facing workforce on mechanisms for harm reduction interactions with their customers.
Around 40% of our workforce has lived experience of gambling harm. What we deliver is bespoke to the target audience, largely through our face-to-face powerful sessions but with an increasing leverage of digital technology. Our work is evidence based and grounded in the latest academic research, ensuring we keep up to date with any new advances in gambling protection measures from all over the world, alongside rapidly changing laws.
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ABOUT SIGA
SIGA is the world’s leading organisation for Sport Integrity. We are creating a whole new landscape for the sports industry by delivering independent global rating and certification for world Sport to ensure it is governed and operates under the highest integrity standards: The SIGA Universal Standards.
Funded by our Members, SIGA is a non for profit global independent organisation with one aim: To ensure the sport industry is governed under the highest integrity standards so that the values of sport are protected.
SIGA is the only organisation to bring together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs and professional services companies, from every region in the world, around a common cause of fostering greater integrity throughout sport.
SIGA is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, as a non for-profit association, and comprises of the following continental subsidiaries: SIGA AMERICA, SIGA EUROPE and SIGA LATIN AMERICA.
For more information on SIGA, including its vision, mission and reform agenda, please refer to the website: www.siga-sport.com and FAQs.
To contact SIGA, please email: comms@siga-sport.com.
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