Following up on recent discussion around responsible gaming and player protection at this month’s SBC Summit Americas in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., SBC Americas spoke with PrizePicks senior director of responsible gaming Phil Sherwood about his work to integrate RG work among all departments and how the company is attempting to provide education to younger players.
Here are our five questions with Sherwood:
SBC: How did your work with the Massachusetts Council on Gaming and Health and the National Council on Problem Gambling prepare you for your role with PrizePicks?
Sherwood: My time with MACGH and the NCPG provided the foundational “why” behind much of what I do. Massachusetts is often cited as the national gold standard for responsible gaming because they didn’t just look at it as a compliance checkbox; they treated it as a public health imperative. Serving as Board President and CCO allowed me to see the nuances of responsible gaming from both a state and national level.
At PrizePicks, they’re not just looking for me to be the “RG guy”; they want me to be a translator who turns research, best practice and regulation into actionable roadmaps for developers and marketers.
Your job at PrizePicks involves working across many different areas of the operation including data science, engineering, product, legal, compliance, and communications. How do you coordinate with these departments to ensure player protection?
Sherwood: This is the most challenging part of any responsible gaming lead’s job. In a fast-growing company, you’re competing for “bandwidth.” RG doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and it can’t be a siloed department. I view my role as ”coalition building”.
I spend a significant amount of time meeting with our engineering and data teams to understand their workflows. We recently held an RG Summit where every department helped map out our roadmap for the next year. By integrating RG goals into their specific departmental KPIs, we ensure that player protection is baked into the product’s DNA.
In the time since you joined us for the 2025 SBC Summit Americas, what new opportunities and challenges have you seen develop in maintaining a safe and healthy environment for players?
Sherwood: The biggest opportunity is, without a doubt, the evolution of AI and machine learning. The idea that humans can manually monitor millions of transactions for markers of harm in real-time is unrealistic.
AI – when guided by human subject matter experts – allows us to intervene at a scale and speed that was previously impossible. It’s about moving from reactive to proactive protection.
PrizePicks partnered last year with Kalshi in the prediction markets space. What similarities or differences exist in the RG space when dealing with prediction markets compared to fantasy sports?
Sherwood: PrizePicks is much more diverse today than even a year ago. While DFS remains our core, our FCM license allows us to offer culture and sports future contracts, which is an exciting frontier.
The fundamental similarity is our commitment to the iCAP standard. We were the first DFS operator to achieve this certification – the highest RG standard in North America – and we are carrying those same rigorous protections over to prediction markets.
With our recent acquisition by Allwyn – a global leader known for their responsible corporate citizenship – our “RG-first” philosophy is even more reinforced. Whether a user is playing a DFS entry or trading a prediction contract, they deserve the same high-level transparency and sustainable play tools.
As PrizePicks is available to 18- and 19-year-olds in certain states, what strategies have you found to be most effective in engaging this younger group in responsible gaming messaging?
Sherwood: When engaging the 18–20 demographic, it is necessary to realize they’re able to sniff out inauthenticity better than other cohorts. . Traditional RG messaging often feels like a lecture; we want it to feel like a user-manual for sustainable play.
Our strategy is “Defense-First.” We don’t target anyone under 21, regardless of state law, and we’ve implemented mandatory deposit limits for the 18-20 group, which isn’t required in any jurisdiction.
But the real shift is in the messengers. We are experimenting with using the same influencers who talk about sports and culture to talk about the “math of the game” and debunk the “easy money” myths. If we can teach a 19-year-old how to engage responsibly now, we aren’t just protecting them – we’re building a sustainable relationship for the next 20 years.
