A renowned award-winning journalist rejected press accreditation initially for an International Casino Exhibition held in London this week. Allegedly the reason for such rejection was the concern of the organizer Clarion Gaming about negative press.
An article was written by The Guardian’s Rob Davies about the 2018 event which called the gaming industry out for sexist marketing, narrating of a place brimmed with short dresses promo girls, fish-net full of pole dancers, and a Playboy themed dance gesture.
The article also led readers to the starting of the new trend of sexual harassment and questionable clothing policies at that casino exhibition, and according to Rob, that was some reason for his not being welcomed at the event.
In a statement to The Press Gazette, he said that they had been saying that it was a tradeshow, and it would not have such conversation that normally national newspapers had about gambling. The Press Gazette, a trade publication of British Media, has intervened the stance, and therefore Clarion had to soften its approach.
Swimsuit Sexism
The article Davies wrote came out in a time and reached a height where most associates can relate themselves and when the gaming industry’s objectification of the women had found its own attention from the concerned. Only a few days before the ICE event 2018, the Financial Times exposed a charity dinner at the President’s Club where a lavish male fundraiser was attended by leading figures in business, entertainment, and politics.
At the dinner event, undercover reporters detected promotional girls being assaulted throughout the entire time of the party, which had been remarked as a national scandal.
Later on, Sarah Harrison, the then chief of the UK Gambling Commission, threatened the exhibitors to boycott the casino event if they failed to stop swimsuit sexism. She said that since its birth, it had been an industry where a number of talented, successful, and powerful women have always taken part, but none can understand that only by roaming around the exhibition. Because the event has turned into such a platform where the male represents their brands and companies putting expensive suits whereas the females have nothing more than swimsuits to wear and this tradition has to come to a stop now.
