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Host Raymond Hall interviews Daniel Umfleet, CEO of Kindbridge, on the rapid growth of sports gambling and the lack of supporting human and healthcare infrastructure. Umfleet argues the biggest disconnect is unclear responsibility and an unprepared health system, as gambling-related financial distress impacts social determinants like rent and food security. They discuss proactive “left of bang” leadership, responsible gambling tools, emerging legislation, and the need for better data and ethical use of behavioral signals such as deposit/withdrawal patterns, late-night activity, absenteeism, and workplace and family warning signs. Umfleet emphasizes shared ownership across operators, regulators, employers, and healthcare and recommends training frontline customer service and managers to de-escalate harm and route people to help. He outlines Kindbridge’s digital-first clinical services, employer programs, customer service support, clinician training, and availability in the US and Canada, as well as an educational AI resource hub for broader use.
00:00 Welcome to The Standard
01:09 Sports Betting Boom and Risks
01:38 Healthcare Not Ready Yet
04:13 Proactive Responsible Gambling
08:07 Behavioral Signals and Ethics
11:01 Workplace and Family Warning Signs
17:03 Shared Ownership and Collaboration
19:24 Digital Natives and New Addictions
24:34 Peak Performance Mindset Trap
30:09 Tax Revenue Into Mental Health
35:07 CEO Playbook for Proactivity
39:00 What Kindbridge Provides
47:28 Global Access and AI Tools
49:37 Closing Thoughts and Takeaways
Creators and Guests
What is The Standard?
Where leadership, wellness, and high performance come together.
What does it actually take to become the standard of excellence in leadership and life?
The Standard is a leadership and personal development program from Aurelius Global LLC, created for executives, athletes, veterans, students, and emerging leaders who want practical guidance they can apply immediately. Hosted by a decorated military veteran and global CHRO, Raymond Hall, the show blends real-world leadership experience with conversations about wellness, resilience, and high performance.
Each episode delivers actionable insight drawn from real people with operational leadership and executive experience, sharing their personal stories and lessons learned from leading high-performing teams around the world.
Whether you’re stepping into leadership, navigating career transitions, or working to grow without sacrificing your health, The Standard is designed to be the voice you return to when it matters most.
Because excellence isn’t theoretical, it’s practiced.
[00:00:18] Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to "The Standard." I'm your host, Raymond Hall. Today, we're tackling a sector where the line between peak performance and catastrophic failure is razor thin: sports gambling. Let me be clear. The economic upside is undeniable. We are seeing billions in tax revenue fueling state budgets and massive job creation across the tech and sports sectors.
This is clearly an economic win, but as any veteran leader knows, rapid growth without a structural foundation is a recipe for collapse. Joining me today is Daniel Umfleet, CEO of Kymbridge. Daniel is at the forefront of the governance side of this growth, working at the intersection of mental health and high-tech intervention.
Daniel, welcome, and thank you for joining.
[00:01:05] Daniel Umfleet: .
Yeah, thank you very much for having me.
[00:01:08] Raymond Hall: Awesome. Awesome. So let's just dive in. Daniel, and we've talked about this, but sports betting is a revenue machine. That's undeniable. From a leadership perspective, we can't ignore the financial benefits. It's revitalized fan engagement. It's created new-- entirely new industries. But where is the biz-- biggest disconnect between this economic acceleration that we're seeing and the human infrastructure required to support it?
[00:01:38] Daniel Umfleet: I think the lack of understanding in who plays what role when something goes wrong in situations like this for individuals who are high performance mindset focused on outcomes and trying to understand math and move around their targets as they think through what their opportunity is to maximize their returns.
Um, ultimately, when things start to spin out of control for individuals, there needs to be a bit of a safety net for the person to get access to the right kind of resources that help them understand what is happening to them psychologically, what is happening to them chemically, and how to create a balance that actually makes sense so that they don't end up messing with a lot of social determinants of health that help them really maintain a lifestyle that they're used to, if that makes sense.
Um, you know, the- The biggest piece that I've seen develop over the last couple of years as sports betting has rolled out and gotten more and more popular, the disconnect is that the health system is not really ready for what this means and what this looks like. Um, as we look, we're care providers, right?
And so as we look through social determinant of health markers, we see financial distress starting to really impact things like food security and things like rent and mortgage payments and keeping a roof over your head and things like this, right? And those are usually pretty strong indicators that there's an imbalance for a person.
And when you go to the community and you have conversations with healthcare leaders, this is something that is beginning to be on their radar, but they're struggling with what to do with it and how to address it. And I think that that's a key component that has to be in place in order for the stability of each of the verticals to really hum symbiotically, if that makes sense.
[00:03:54] Raymond Hall: It totally does, Daniel. And, and let's keep it there for a moment because in my experience as a global corporate executive, the biggest blind spot is reactivity. Leaders often treat harm as a compliance issue to be mitigated after something breaks, is what you were describing earlier.
Um, but what does proactive left of bang leadership look like in the gaming space today?
[00:04:20] Daniel Umfleet: Specifically in the gaming space, there's a lot of movement towards responsible gambling tools, which is not really a term that most of the American public is familiar with, right? Um, but a lot of activity gets tethered back to money and frequency of deposits, frequency of withdrawals, time of day of deposits, time of day of withdrawals.
Is the individual, you know, awake at three o'clock in the morning, which gives us a, a good clue that there might be some insomnia creeping in, which is also a sign. Um, and really trying to build safeguards in a way that proactively encourage a person to be more mindful of the way that they're engaging with the platform from a money perspective, right?
From a mental health perspective, I think we've got a little... W- w- we've got some distance to go before we start seeing, I think, proactive mental health messaging and finding the right balance between, hey, this is a sports book that's trying to expand its reach and expand its market share, um, while at the same time encouraging its player base to, you know, take it easy and make sure that their mental health markers are in line, right?
So I think we've got a ways to go on that. But, you know, on the responsible gambling front and then on the legislative front We do see a lot more activity now than we've ever seen before, right? There's more bills going through legislation that put more guardrails in place. There's challenges to everything from push notifications on the phone to advertising during certain hours of the day that are cropping up in a handful of states.
There's legislative bills that are in play that are encouraging to see that they're mandating that insurance companies allow for coding for this particular issue, um, in a way that we can start to see some visible data. So there's a lot going on, um, and I would say the industry is incentivized in some different ways to make sure that its players stay safe from a monetary perspective.
Um, and I think those restrictions continue to get tighter as things continue to develop. And I think the reason for that is we're seeing a lot more people who are understanding that gambling can disrupt their lifestyle, gambling can disrupt their mental health, gambling can disrupt their well-being and they're starting to talk about it.
And we're hearing from community providers across the country that these are issues that are now talked about on a much more routine basis compared to what they were three years ago. And as that chatter continues to bubble up, that just means healthcare has to respond. And one of the things that you hit on in the question, you know, the response from healthcare, while it has been slow, it's also had a lack of data understanding this population for a very long time.
The more data that's collected on individuals who are presenting with these types of issues, the better chance we have of getting the right kind of care continuum in place across the healthcare sector. But that's gonna take time, right? So where we try to wedge in is understanding that it's gonna take time for the evolution of responsible gambling.
It's gonna take time for the evolution of legislation. It's gonna take time for the evolution of the healthcare system responding and setting up the necessary architecture and infrastructure for it. And so we want to be here now as those problems start to bubble up and everybody's trying to basically work the strategy and work the plan, if that makes sense.
[00:08:04] Raymond Hall: Yeah, it sure does. And those are great insights. I want to stay Stay on the topic of data for a second, 'cause you, you, started to go down a path that I think is critically important. When you look at successful corporations, they all tend to have a common theme resonating through in terms of leadership philosophy, and they'll say, "We're data-driven."
And so they understand what they need to track, and they understand how they need to use the data and the reporting that are provided to them. Today, organizations, um, due to the benefit of enhanced technology, they have more data than ever. Um, for example, in logistics we use data to spot a supply chain break before it happens, which goes back to the pro-- the proactive nature of what you were describing earlier. For the companies, though, that are listening, what do you believe are the specific behavioral signals that, you know, th-those leading indicators, embedding patterns, or platform engagement that tell us an individual is moving from high performance fun to destructive risk? And how do we use that data ethically without breaking the trust of the consumer?
[00:09:14] Daniel Umfleet: ~I think there's, ~there's a very wide net that you need to cast when you're looking at data related to these types of problems. I think the most important thing for like employer groups, for example, is to really take a look at absenteeism rates, really take a look at downstream mental health psychiatry rates, um, look at what the increase looks like over a period of time, and then listen to your workforce and what they're talking about on their breaks, right?
I think this is a very interesting topic, right? I was at a I was at a school district about two months ago talking about these types of issues, and they had reached out and asked if we could have a conversation, so I went and visited them. And one of the very first things that they asked me to do was to actually just go to the teachers' lounge and hang out in the teachers' lounge for like an hour, right?
Um, and so I did, and it was actually eye-opening. You know, you have all of these teachers that are hanging out in the lounge, their faces are buried in their phone, and a huge amount of the conversation that the men teachers were having was what bets that they were placing on the games that they were placing bets on.
And they kind of pulled me out after about an hour or so, and they were like That's what I'm talking about, right? Like, this is basically what our culture has become here, is everybody's face is buried in a phone, and any of the conversations that you do hear cropping up, oftentimes they are talking about what it is that they're placing bets on and what they're, you know, they're asking for insights on what others are placing bets on.
And then I went to visit a, a union group in the same city, right? And the conversation was the same. They said their breaks have turned into nothing but people talking about betting on ping pong at three o'clock in the morning, talking about what the spread is on the games, who they're taking, you know, what some of the prop bets, which are just individual bets on players and how they're gonna perform.
Um, and they talked a lot about bathroom breaks extending extensively to the point where guys are disappearing for twenty minutes at a time, and come to find they're basically looking through what's going on and what they can possibly place a bet on, right? So there are a lot of signals and symptoms that you can see inside of the workforce if you look for it.
I think we kinda get there's a duality here. There's, there's a mindset of like, "This isn't a problem because I'm still getting the work done," versus, "This is becoming a problem because I'm recognizing that cost is going up for project delivery," right? So there's a couple of different ways that you can kinda see it inside of the workforce that make it easier to spot, right?
And from a family perspective, a lot of times what you see is isolation. You see someone disappearing for long periods of time, extended usage of the phone. Um, you get much more, you get much more heightened tempers with a much more short wick on those tempers. Um, you know, ultimately it all has to lead to a conversation as to what the activity is, is happening on the phone, right?
Um, from data, right? Like there's a lot of things that we look at in the financial sector as well. We have a initiative that includes a lot of the big banks and a lot of the credit card companies, um, some of the social media platforms as well. And like the, the whole objective is to look sort of across verticals at signals and symptoms inside of each of those sort of siloed verticals that don't traditionally talk to one another to see if we can see some patterns, right?
And I think one of the most alarming things that we've stumbled on is really when you look at a lot of aggregated financial data and you can kind of see the harm taking place, but it takes place really quickly. Right? So somebody's personal finance situation can look really solid one day, and then four days later it can be completely wrecked, right.
And so what we're trying to do is look upstream at what, you know, the thirty days and sixty days looks like on the lead up to that sort of four-day window to try to understand what it is that might give us signals, right? And, you know, a lot of it is a change in a financial situation. Um, you know, a lot of it is, is, you know, like loss of a job type thing, right?
A lot of it is, is like you can kind of see, okay, well, there was a late payment on this credit card, or there was a late payment on the mortgage, or the mortgage was skipped, right? And then all of a sudden, things start to accelerate and damage happens very quickly. Now, like, it's also important to point out this does happen to an incredibly small amount of people compared to when you look at the whole population size, you know.
But it's enough people where the damage is significant. And then usually when you see the damage happening with the person, it's not just the person that's impacted, it's everyone around the person. So, you know, basically, you can consider a metric of like, you know, for every one gambler, there's gonna be seven to eight individuals additionally impacted, if not more, right?
So there's a lot of reason to have the conversation early. There's a lot of reason to promote screening early. There's a lot of reason to put programming in place that helps people talk about this on the regular. There's a lot of reason to put training in place that helps employers understand what's happening to their employee base or their member base, right?
And there's a lot of reasons to put outlets in place for people to reach out to when they need help with this, because it can happen incredibly fast.
[00:15:29] Raymond Hall: Daniel, I, I really love that. A-as you were talking, it triggered a thought for me. In my experience as a global CHRO, um, we believe that our frontline managers Are-- That's where the rubber hits the road. You know, they, they know the employees better than the people that are sitting at the executive level, um, intimately. But the way we train them probably needs to be re-engineered. And so because the things that employees are facing today are very different than the things they were facing tomorrow. And when you talked about how to identify some of these signs, much like we did when it came to substance abuse or alcohol abuse, you know, how to identify, you know, some of these things so that we can be proactive in finding solutions so the person can remain gainfully employed and, you know, they don't have that employment impact that if it was, um, unresolved, definitely it could be that way.
We've seen
headline after headline where we've had people who had access to companies' financials, um, that were making bad decisions, and at the core of it could have been, um, an addiction like we're talking about, you know, today. So I do think there's an opportunity for companies to both look at not only the employee assistance programs but even their frontline manager training, um, so that they become more aware of these things so they can be proactive going back to your earlier points, um, around this. Um, which kind of leads me to our next point around the shared ownership aspect of it. And I know I talked to you a couple of weeks ago. I was blown away. Um, I learned a whole lot about this space that I, I knew nothing about before, and the conversation so far this morning has even got me, you know, extremely excited.
So I really appreciate it. The responsibility in this space, though, feels very fragmented. You touched on it a little bit, um, but in a high-performing ecosystem, somebody's got to own the result. Um, do you think the health of the player is the responsibility of the operator, the regulator, or the healthcare provider?
And when this is working well in practice, not theory, what does a successful collaboration between a tech platform and a clinical provider like Keen- like Kindbridge actually look like?
[00:17:58] Daniel Umfleet: It's a really good question. And again, it-- you gotta cast a really wide net to sort of fully understand the scope of what's going on, right? And so I think every individual vertical really has their own level of responsibility here, right? There's a level of responsibility that the operators have on their parts for some level of consumer protection and player protection, understanding the unhealthy behaviors that are being displayed amongst the group of people who are playing on their platform, and then making sure that they're taking the right steps to help that person avoid it and then recover when there is a problem, right?
I think from the legislative and the regulatory perspective, there is a ownership that is required on that piece to collect and understand that data and then write rules in legislation that makes sense to put safeguards in place. I think on the employer side, it's our job to make sure that the health of our employees is always as top-notch as it can possibly be.
Um, you know, the thing that often We talk about in the employer world is, you know, there's a lot of stress that stems from our jobs. And so the stress that comes from our jobs has to be taken care of in a very efficient and effective way, right? Adding the layer of complexity of a digital dependency with a behavioral addiction to the mix is a new challenge that every employer is going to be facing.
I mean, we are totally entering the age where a growing percentage of the workforce are digital natives. They never grew up with you know, a corded telephone. They've always seen a screen. They're always interacting with screens, and technology is part of their everyday life, right? And understanding that and the impact that that has from an occupational health perspective is extremely important.
And also leadership has to understand that there is a generational gap between the way that leaders that are in their forties and fifties interact with tech versus the way that the twenty and thirty-year-olds interact with tech, right? And so we have to close that gap so that we get to a level of understanding and also know how to address the training that goes on in our own companies to make sure that we're providing the right types of safeguards and the right types of outlets.
You know, all too often I, I come across employer groups that, you know, "Hey, our, our health plan is our health plan. That's what we chose. I'm not sure what's in it. I don't know what-- I don't know what they get from a mental health perspective. I know they get something, but I'm not sure, and I think there's an addition of, you know another product that they can tap into for free support."
I think we have to be a little bit more aware of what these, what these programs entail, and I think we also have to really tailor in what the future generations of work are gonna be dealing with. And, you know, it's not just gambling. You know, the things that we see, we see social media dependencies. We see, you know, lots and lots of doom scrolling.
Like this is applicable across a bunch of different potential behavioral problems, right? Um, we see pornography issues as well, right? Like basically anything that you may be interacting with on sort of a quiet basis that's not disrupting your life. When you end up in a situation where you're dealing with trauma or you're dealing with grief, all too often the phone becomes the, the coping mechanism.
And instead of just sitting with yourself and letting your brain rest- All too often, we're picking up that phone and we're crawling into something that helps us take our mind off of something for a little while, right? And so coping and understanding how to recover and heal is also changing because of the way that we're interacting with the devices on a routine daily basis now.
And a lot of individuals that we see that come to us for help, we have to unwind the way that they think about their relationship with their device, right? And we have to unwind the way that they think about coping in trauma and grief situations and help them understand that these types of things are not good things to crawl into when you're dealing with a bout of depression, because it amplifies the situation and can potentially make your financial situation very insecure.
[00:23:20] Raymond Hall: You know, Daniel, I think we probably should come up with our own show called "Kendrick Spirits" because just listening to you I, I feel the passion, and you probably have the same belief I do, that when it comes to the role of the manager or the role of the leader, that expectation for them has changed.
I don't know whether it was, you know, the COVID impacts where the whole leadership competency model was flipped on its head, where it used to be, you know, being a business strategist or financial or business acumen were the things that you were looking forward to. Now it's more empathy. It's more of some of the things that we're talking about now that are more important. And it's really irrespective, whatever industry you're in, it doesn't matter. They're all people-driven industries because our people are the ones delivering the results. And if you have leaders that don't understand this, if you have leaders that don't even understand basics in terms of what's available for my people if they need help They're probably a liability for your organization. And so I really appreciate, um, your thinking behind that. Um, on this show, we celebrate that all-in mentality, but there is a point where that competitive fire becomes a liability. Um, for leaders in sports and gaming, how do you build a culture that promotes winning and high performance without unintentionally reinforcing harmful addictive habits?
[00:24:55] Daniel Umfleet: Yeah, you have to help people understand where to draw the line, right? Like, and you have to use, I think, real-life scenarios. Um, I think a really good one, like there's-- we, we've done work with a peak performance group out of Arizona on several occasions with some NCAA schools and some professional teams, right?
And when you start talking to them and you start hearing the banter and the back and forth and the locker room talk and, you know, you start Understanding the way that they think about what peak performance means to them and how they need it every day to show up in their job, there are some themes that really start to bubble to the top, and I think we all know them, right?
It's repetition. It's practice, practice, practice. It is hone your craft. It is make yourself the best that you can possibly make yourself at all costs, right? Like, that is effectively
your job, is to, is to function at a very high performance rate at all times when you need to, and be able to turn it on like that.
And I think all too often, what we see is transitional periods between period-- between a career of absolute high performance and transitioning into something at a more, let's call it normal speed, right? And individuals in those mindsets tends to take that mindset of I can, I can become the best at this, right?
Like, I can become the best poker player. I can become great at sports betting, right? Um, and all too often, they don't understand the math behind the games. They don't understand how these things work, and they think that they can beat the house just by continuously practicing over and over and over again, and they can't.
And I think there's some, some statistics that we usually throw around in situations like this, where when you look at some of the most elite sports bettors in the history of sports betting that we know of, right? We're talking about a winning percentage that hovers around fifty-five percent for the best, right?
So you're really talking about a little bit better odds of a coin toss if you are really, really, really clued into this and you know a lot about math and how things move and how things work and the variables that influence the outcomes. That's not a lot of people, right? There are not a lot of people that are that invested in this to understand all of the mechanics that are moving in that direction.
And all too often, you see individuals who take that mindset of peak performance into a scenario where they want to suddenly become great at some sort of gambling modality and they end up wrecking themselves all too often very fast, right? And so I think you have to use some real-life examples and really draw attention to the periods of time where when someone is transitioning between careers into a new role, retiring, these types of things, like these are all vul-vulnerable periods of time for individuals where they're looking for something else to occupy their mind, and they're looking to be great at the next thing.
And this is not something to go be great at. This is something to use more as an entertainment factor and understand that, you know, if you're going to the tables or you're gonna place that bet, you know, this is money that you should expect to lose, right? And it should be fun, right? Y-you really shouldn't start thinking about, "This is how I'm gonna make a living.
This is gonna become part of my budget. This is how I intend on paying for things in the future. I'm just going to keep continuously taking these risks." Um, you know, we see-- we, we're seeing a lot of emerging patterns that look very, very similar in these new prediction markets that are spinning up, right?
And new risk that's being put on the table as product, you know, like being able to bet on whether the weather's gonna hit sixty-three degrees today, right? Or how many times somebody is gonna say a word in a speech, these types of things, right? Um, there's a lot of these variables that are just straight up outside of your control.
And, you know, this is not, this is not a category of something that you wanna be super risky with and use as a wealth-building strategy. Um, you know, I, I think we have to educate leaders on the front line, and I think we have to educate employees as well around, you know, where do you draw the line?
Like, what are the categories that you apply that mindset to from a peak performance perspective on a day-to-day basis that makes sense for you to perform at a high level versus taking that mindset into a category where it could potentially be catastrophic very quickly. And the only way to do that is to talk, right?
And to educate time and time again and just continuously reinforce it.
[00:30:06] Raymond Hall: Yeah. No, that, that's true. Daniel, we often hear that gambling tax revenue, you know, is a, is a public good. Um, you know, those tax dollars used for building schools and roads and highways, um, and other services that constituents benefit from. Um, but a percentage of that win, I believe, must be reinvested back into the human element to make the model sustainable. Um, based on your experience, what specific policy models or incentive structures have you seen where tax revenue is meaningfully challenged, ch- excuse me, channeled, channeled into the mental health infrastructure?
[00:30:51] Daniel Umfleet: There's a couple of pretty positive examples of things that work, right? Um, but there's not a lot, right? So the state of Ohio has got some pretty solid infrastructure around this. The state of Massachusetts has got some pretty solid infrastructure around this. Um, the state of Florida is building some pretty solid infrastructure around this, and the state of Colorado is building some pretty solid infrastructure around this.
But you see gaps everywhere. I, and I think one of the things that I've noticed, especially this legislative cycle, right, is it feels to me like states are becoming very dependent on this tax revenue because they're not generating it in other areas,
right? And there are a lot of... You know, prop bets are a very hot topic that are being discussed, right?
So basically, placing a bet on an individual's performance, parlays that are prop bet-oriented, where you're placing multiple bets on multiple individual performances. Um, those tend to be more tricky with less wins for individuals and generate more tax revenue for the state, if that makes sense, right? Um, and we've seen a handful of states back off from putting restrictions on prop bets because they're recognizing that those bets will eat into their budget pretty substantially, right?
And so I think we have to have a conversation about dependability on revenue sources coming from just, you know, the, the size and scale of it coming from just this vertical, right? Um, and so I think, again, there is a lot of work to do on all fronts in order to help understand what the correct balance needs to look like from a policy perspective on this and a product perspective on this.
Um, and it's gonna take time. You know, like we saw this across Europe for years and before, before- we started Kindbridge here in the US, I was doing work in Europe on these types of issues, right? And we're seeing the same patterns develop over here that were developed over there. We're seeing similar product emerge over here that was emerging over there, right?
And so there's a lot of lessons learned. And the fact that this is handled on a state-by-state basis from a protection perspective means you're going to end up with a lot of different models. And the fact that it's taxed different on a state-by-state basis, you're going to end up with a lot of different tax revenues coming from it.
There's going to be different amounts of contributions coming from different states, right? And so governments are going to have to, I think, really take a look at what's going on out in the community and how healthcare is responding and get a good sense of, okay, what amount of dollars do actually need to be put back into shoring up the necessary resources, right?
Because the thing with this, and we saw this with other sort of slow-to-respond situations in the US when it comes to healthcare, is until there's funding in place to actually support the health system building out the infrastructure and the architecture, it's pretty hard to build the infrastructure and the architecture in the healthcare space unless you're getting some sort of support, right?
And when you're talking about, you know, some states have very little in terms of dollars that flow into programming for these types of issues. Some states have more dollars than others, and some states have plenty of dollars that can go flow into situations like this where you need to build and invest in the infrastructure.
So it's going to evolve. It's going to evolve really, quite honestly, I think for like the next 10 years. I think this conversation is going to be ongoing for quite a while. I think we'll see some states set precedents, and I think we'll see some states follow. I think we'll still see plenty of slow adopters, and we'll still see plenty of states that don't adopt, right?
So it's going to be an ongoing issue for quite a while.
[00:35:05] Raymond Hall: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. Daniel, so let's zoom out. Um, there are a number of CEOs that are actually, you know, on this call, you know, that are leading high growth,
high risk industries, whether we're talking gaming, AI, or finance. What do You believe their ultimate responsibility is when it comes to
anticipating the
second order effects, you know, of their product? Is-- If there is one tangible move a leader could take tomorrow to move their organization from being reactive to truly proactive, what is it?
[00:35:44] Daniel Umfleet: conversation, right? I think in situations where there's a second-order effect with a lot of these products, which we're starting to R-really actually kind of capture the second-order effects at a, at a larger magnitude. I think, you know, the conversation needs to move directly to the front lines on individuals particularly that are interacting with the customers who are reporting the harm, right?
And I think that this is, this is a very fine point to make, right? Is in high-risk environments where the product is being adopted at such a fast pace, and customer service is the one that is typically having to go and work directly with the disgruntled customer or the distressed customer, it is extremely important that the front line who is managing that process of working with the person understands how to address that person, meet them where they are, have a solid conversation with them about what is going on, and then route them to the right resources where they can find the right level of help, right?
I think that is extremely important. All too often, and I, I say this, you know, I, I say this with the best of intentions for everyone who's listening who has customer service agents that are dealing with individuals that are dissatisfied with your product in one way, shape, or form, or they have been bitten by your product in one way, shape, or form, right?
Like those customer service agents pay the price of having to be on the front lines and take those calls day in and day out. And from what we see in several high-risk, high-exposure categories, that is probably the place where you are experiencing a large amount of churn, which means you're spending more money on recruiting, you're spending more money on training on a regular basis.
And a very simple solution is arming that person with the right type of talk track and style of speaking to help the individual that's on the other end of the line, or on the other end of the email, or on the other end of the chat really understand how to guide that person in a way that is going to be extremely meaningful towards resources that help to deescalate the situation, right?
Like you start there and you branch out and you educate across your workforce, you're going to win, right? Like your, your employees are going to be satisfied and appreciate the fact that you're acknowledging these things and helping the employee base understand how to deal with them in real time when they see them, right?
And I think that's extremely important for all of the leaders who are listening in as a takeaway in situations where you are in a high-exposure, high-risk environment.
[00:38:52] Raymond Hall: That, that's awesome, Daniel, and I'm sure that the leaders listening in really appreciate, um, your voice on this issue. Um, the, the other question I have for you, and this is my, my final question, is more around we understand the economic opportunity around sports betting, um, is still in, in growth mode, and there's a lot of growth there to, to be captured in terms of economic growth. We also now understand some of the downsides and the need to have a really good infrastructure in place to be able to support it, so it creates a, a win-win. If I'm an organization Tell us more about Kindbridge and the work that you're leading, what type of services you provide, how people can engage with you, and some of the things you can do on, on all fronts to help these organizations create that win-win we talked about
[00:39:49] Daniel Umfleet: Absolutely. Kindbridge, we do a lot of work in this space from a combination, you know, at its core, right? It is a digital-first provider group that stretches across the country where individuals who have issues related to their gambling, gaming, pornography, social media, addictive shopping, all have access to resources who are trained and qualified to help the individual get onto a care plan, execute the care plan successfully, and recover, right?
So that's at its core, right? We engage with different groups in different ways, right? So with employers, we run employee bolt-on programs to your EAP, right? So we will come in, and we will do some education for you alongside of you with your workforce, usually on either a quarterly basis or a biannual basis, where we give the opportunity to talk to licensed clinicians that deal with these types of issues on the front lines every single day, who can walk you through scenarios and let your group ask questions and bounce some ideas off of them for the things that they're seeing firsthand.
This ends up creating A, a usage spike of individuals who are exercising the benefit. Everybody in the employee group gets access to us. There's a six-session style program that we run for individuals with these types of with these types of issues that need to be addressed. Um, and they can come in and talk to us at any point in time, and they-- we can help them calibrate and get back on the right track, right?
For customer service agents, specifically in high-risk, high-exposure environments, we are a lot more hands-on, right? So we will come in and work with your customer service agents on a regular basis. We will run webinars on a monthly basis where individuals can show up and use it a bit like group support to talk through some of the things that they're seeing and have a clinician respond.
Um, go through specific topics like resiliency building, skills building, coping, these types of things to help them understand how to protect themselves in these situations as well. And then we allow the employee to have access to us in either a texting format or a call format anytime that they need us around the clock, where they're dealing with a distressed player, where they're dealing with a heightened situation that needs de-escalation, we can step in, and we can assist, right?
And then, you know, the reality is, is in some cases, the employer is making sure that the customer has a bit of a wraparound service so that they get access to us to talk to us on a semi-regular basis, and then we'll leverage their insurance plan, right? Um, we run trainings pretty consistently on clinical workforce development.
So we've developed thirty- and sixty-hour training modules that help clinicians really understand this issue at a deeper level. And this really works well in states that have massive treatment deserts and really low access to care in rur-rural areas. So we're not printing new clinicians at any ridiculous rate.
It's staying pretty steady, and we have treatment gaps everywhere, right? And so tooling up clinicians out in the community with these types of-- w-with these ty-- with this type of toolkit really helps make it make more sense You know, considering we're not gonna close the gap anytime soon on the number of treatment providers to meet the demand that's out there for these things, right?
Um, individuals really have access to us through, you know-- If anybody out here
that's listening, you know, we are integrated into Cigna's EAP, Aetna's EAP, and Optum's EAP,
right? So we are immediately a resource for your employee pool if you carry any one of those and have coverage through any one of those providers, right?
And it doesn't matter where you are. We're everywhere, and we're connected into all states, right? So if you have any one of those providers, all you would need to do is reach out and talk to us, and we can send you some things to circulate amongst your, your clinic or your employee pool. And if you want us to come do some training, we can come do some training as well, right?
So there are a lot of different ways. I mean, there is a front door right through the website for individuals who need to find us. You know, I, I think it, it's important to actually draw attention to the fact that the individuals who tend to find us coming through the website are people who are aware that there is a problem with a loved one, right?
We are also for the affected others, right? And I think that that's really important to note. You don't have to be the person with the problem to come talk to us. The affected others are affected in a lot of different ways, and they also need support as they're trying to navigate what this looks like and how to address it in their households, right?
And so I think that that's really important. You know, people out there who are listening who are an affected other, there are places where you can come and have a conversation virtually, anonymously, easily, where you can start getting some guidance on issues like this and how to navigate it inside of your own household, right?
And so I, I think, you know, w- with, with companies, typically what our style is, is we come in and listen to what it is that you guys are dealing with on the front lines, and we will tailor a program to what it is that you need. You know, whether it's, you know, you need peer support and you need to let your employees have an outlet to have a-- to access peer support groups, whether it's individual counseling, family counseling, couples counseling.
You know, whatever it is, however it's impacting your organization, we can find a fit for you. And at the end of the day, there's a backup payer for when people need to go into longer-term care and do more with a longer-term care plan dealing with the comorbidities and the co-occurring addictions that are always present when individuals present with these problems, right?
Um- Yeah, happy to talk to anybody whenever, you know, whenever anybody's ready to have the conversation. I think now's the time. I know we're a little early in thinking about what, what plans we're going to enroll for our employees for next year, but might as well start the conversation early. And, you know, if you're in a high exposure, high risk vertical and interested in bringing services like this to your employees, then now's the time to do it.
'Cause this is just gonna keep growing and growing, and growing in terms of the size and the scale of the issue. And the quicker you get out in front of it, the quicker you start controlling some of your occupational health costs.
[00:47:08] Raymond Hall: absolutely. And I think the timing, um, is actually good. This is generally the time of the year when employers and their benefits teams start looking at, um, what they wanna do next year in terms of, um, services provided and doing the cost analysis and all of those sort of things. So I think the timing is perfect. Um, in terms of the, the availability or accessibility of your services, is it only in the US if I'm a global organization? Um, because the accessibility to these tech platforms for engagement, um, is a worldwide... There's worldwide access. When you described the services that you offer companies, do you also offer that across the globe, or is there a plan to do that in the future? Kinda what's your, what's your thinking there?
[00:47:58] Daniel Umfleet: . So we're available in Canada as well. Um, we are building and have started deploying in beta phase, um, an AI bot that deals with these types of topics in a very educational and interactive manner that can be tailored specifically to start routing individuals towards the right kind of resources depending on where you are.
The bot is extremely easy to deploy. It also comes with a resource hub where we provide educational content on these topics, educational and tutorial videos on how to address these topics and think about these topics. Um, and we cover a wide variety of topics in the way that this impacts different populations, everything from military population to athlete population to general population.
Um And for international clients, we can very easily tailor something that makes sense as a resource hub with activity or with, with the ability to plug in the AI, and the AI works in 15 different languages.
Um, so there is-- there's a lot that we can do to think about expansion beyond the US and Canada.
Um, but from a clinical pool perspective, you know, we are rooted in the US and Canada. Um, not to say we're not gonna branch out farther than that, right? But at this moment in time, US and Canada is where you have direct access to the clinical network that specializes in these issues. Um, from an education, training, and resource perspective, there are things that we can do to support international customers as well.
[00:49:36] Raymond Hall: No, thank you. A-and Daniel, thank you, um, for your time, you know, today in a very much needed and impactful, you know, conversation. The growth of sports betting is a powerful economic story, but the legacy of this era will be defined by the leaders who build safeguards into the system.
High performance isn't just about the score, it's about the health of the players.
So we really appreciate you coming in and, and setting the standard. And to our audience, aim high, lead well, and always set the standard. I'm Raymond Hall, your host for "The Standard." Until next time.