Grand Lisboa announced that it will work with the non-profit social service organisation, Yat On Centre to provide training in responsible gaming for all of its newly recruited employees, the company said in a press release yesterday.
“This will be the first time in Macau that a professional counselling organisation has worked with a casino on such a program,” the release said.
The cooperation between the two organisations began with three training sessions on August 27 to 28.  The first group of students were 100 newly transferred dealers into Grand Lisboa from other SJM properties.
The training is to teach employees how to identify problem gamblers and the consequences of being addicted to gambling.
Louis Ng, SJM’s director and chief operating officer said, “it is extremely beneficial for a gaming operator to have such a professional counselling organisation as Yat On Centre to educate our staff in problem gaming.”
“As a company that takes seriously its duty of care to its employees and visitors, we have provided this opportunity to our staff to understand this issue and to be able to help others.  We will also extend this training to all newly recruited employees.”
Brian Wong, the head of the Yat On Centre, said, “we are pleased that we are having continuous collaboration with Grand Lisboa.  We believe this will become the role model example in Macau for other gaming operators to fulfil their corporate social responsibilities, assisting their employees in tackling the issue of problem gambling.”
The aim of the training is to explain the concepts of responsible gaming to floor staff so that they will be able to resist the temptation of gaming themselves. Moreover, after the employees have acquired such knowledge, they will be able to identify symptoms of addiction to gaming in their families, friends or colleagues and provide assistance.
The Yat On Centre is a registered not-for-profit social service organisation.  It provides a dedicated hotline and person-to-person counselling for people who believe that they have problem gaming issues.  The Centre’s counsellors have been trained in dealing with problems such as depression, family crisis, and attempted suicide.  The counsellors have undergone training courses in Hong Kong and are qualified with certification from Canadian academic authorities.