New Horizons In Safer Gambling Conference 2026

The Human Algorithm: Why Lived Experience Is the Most Disruptive Force in Safer Gambling

For two decades, former Australian Football League player David Schwarz has done what no algorithm can: speak the first‑person truth of gambling harm. Not as a warning or statistic, but as a story that cuts through shame and reaches people before they ask for help.

Lived‑experience education works differently. It enters workplaces, schools, and clubs — places technology can’t reach — and speaks in a language clinical framing never quite captures: the human voice.

As the industry confronts advertising restrictions and a public‑health approach to harm, this session argues that lived experience, used strategically and at scale, isn’t an add‑on to tech‑led solutions. It’s the disruptive force that makes them work.