Kindred Group has documented a decrease in the share of revenue that the group derives from harmful gambling to 3.9 per cent for the first quarter of the year.
The update comes as the firm strives to make further progress as its previously communicated ambition to reach zero per cent by 2023.
“Taking this step to report our revenue from harmful gambling has received positive reactions from many stakeholders and our hope is that other operators will follow,” stated Henrik Tjärnström, CEO at Kindred Group.
“Gambling disorder is a global and industry wide challenge, which is why collaboration remains an important part of the solution. To ensure alignment across the industry we have invited researchers to help us improve PS-EDS and we are transparent on the methodology we use.”
Earlier in the year, Kindred became the first gambling operator to report its share of revenue from harmful gambling, with the Stockholm-listed group vowing to release its new ‘transparency metric’ as part of its safer gambling mandate.
For the first quarter of 2021, the share of revenue from harmful gambling decreased slightly to 3.9 per cent from 4.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Further safer gambling metrics saw Kindred report a group-wide one per cent increase in ‘improvement effect after interventions’ by its customer care teams to 76.6 per cent.
Providing an update on group directives, Kindred also stated that it had established close cooperation with treatment centres and experts by experience.
Furthermore, boardroom-level changes saw Kindred become the first online gambling company to incorporate a ‘Sustainability Council,’ placing the firm’s social responsibility mandate alongside corporate governance, risk, compliance and auditing duties.
“It’s encouraging to see a decrease in the share of revenue from harmful gambling for the first quarter of the year, however we need to be aware that the journey forward will not be a steady decrease,” added Tjärnström.
“We expect to see the data increase in individual quarters but we continue to work towards our ambition. Reducing harmful gambling in society is a long-term process which requires a fact-based, open, and constructive dialogue among all stakeholders.”
