Deal Me Out offered financial lifeline by Genting to continue offering services
Charity’s education and support programmes to be saved following last-minute intervention from international casino powerhouse
Deal Me Out has been offered a funding promise by Genting Casinos to continue offering its full suite of services..
Deal Me Out was facing the prospect of shuttering its education, support and graduate training programme by 1 June due to a lack of funding.
The charity was set to retain its crisis website for a further two years, staffed by a team of volunteers.
However, land-based and online casino operator Genting has agreed to fund the group for the foreseeable future, providing Deal Me Out with the means to continue to offer all of its services.
The charity had already secured support from Playtech and Metropolitan Gaming to support its crisis site.
Taking to LinkedIn to share the news, Deal Me Out founder Jordan Lea thanked Genting for its offer of support before turning his attention to the research, education and treatment (RET) funding system.
Lea said: “It was an immensely difficult week for us all. I was dreading coming back to my emails, but was incredibly humbled by the showing of support.
“Amongst those emails was an offer to save Deal Me Out’s services from immediate closure. Everybody within the team is so incredibly grateful to Jon Duffy [SVP regulatory affairs] and Genting Casinos, along with everybody else that has supported us. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bring a tear to my eye.
“This was not something they had to do, far from it. They care about the organisations on the ground. The LCCP RET system should never have left any organisation (of which we are not alone) in the position we found ourselves in. There is already enough money within the system, the distribution Is just monumentally bonkers.
“This isn’t the time or place to open up the debate, but from the [messages] I’ve had privately, that day is coming,” he added.
RET funding is currently disproportionately funnelled to GambleAware, the UK’s leading gambling harm-focused charity, with less high profile charities handed far smaller funding packages from operators to provide services to those in need.
According to the latest available data, GambleAware received more than £24.2m in operator contributions in Q1 2022, while Deal Me Out was handed £64,650 in the same period.