From the Ashes of Failure

It’s the last day of Safer Gambling Week, and today I want to talk about failure.

Around 3 weeks ago, BetBlocker failed. We discovered a new bug in our iOS system, a consequence of an Apple update, that resulted in our block failing for about 10-20% of the sites on our block list. We thought we had it fixed quickly because there was one bug hiding inside another and we nailed part of the problem. But then realised that the larger issue was still present.

I take these things hard. When our block fails, we’re letting vulnerable people down. My stress levels escalate very quickly. It’s not good enough.

Since that point, I’ve made our Development Team’s life a misery. I have been all up in their business, contacting multiple times a day, pressing and pressing and pressing to find a solution. Fast. It’s perhaps not the fairest of responses, but we all know the saying about rolling downhill and given my own lack of coding skills all I can really do is look to keep everyone else focused.

I’m really pleased to say today that we’ve got a fix. But better than that, our team has significantly improved how challenging it is to bypass the block. A lot of research and development resulted in our team coming up with an entirely new strategy for enforcing the block, one that the vast majority of users simply won’t know how to bypass. One that we'd never considered before.

[Quick side note – no BetBlocker isn’t perfect. No blocking software is. We’re always fighting the OS to make it as challenging as possible to remove, whilst still staying within the development rules of the OS.]

Here’s the thing about success and failure. Throughout my life, I’ve never found success that rewarding. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to chalk one up in the win column. But wins are already in the past. They don’t tend to influence what is to come.

Failures are a different story. When we fail, it forces us to reflect on what went wrong. To change our practices. To improve. They are the genesis of innovation.

Personally, throughout my life, all of the biggest positive changes have come about in response to failure. Both personally and professionally, failure has been what has motivated me to change.

So I’m really pleased to announce that later today BetBlocker will be uploading a new and improved iOS app. A stronger app that will do a better job of protecting vulnerable players. An improvement that’s only come about because we failed.