Kindred publishes annual sustainability report

Kindred has provided an annual update on CSR objectives and its sustainable operating strategy. 

Sweden.- Kindred has published its annual sustainability report as part of its objective to make 0 per cent of its revenues from harmful gaming by 2023. The group had announced last year that it intended to become the first online gambling company to report on safer gambling and sustainability metrics as part of its financial duties.

The new report shows that in 2021, Kindred made gross winnings of £1.26bn and EBITDA £332m (a 26 per cent EBITDA margin). Of the gross win, 4 per cent was calculated to have come from “high-risk customers“, which Kindred defines as players who have closed their account due to addiction or who were detected by Kindred’s player detection system (PS-EDS) for having a high risk.

The group says it has added 24 new criteria for monitoring customer play using web analytics, risk calculations, and data points. It also evaluated over 430,000 player survey responses to monitor its KPIs. The company said it had received positive feedback from its 3.5 million active players, saying that 86 per cent of customers believe that Kindred brands offer a “trustworthy online gambling experience”.

As for sustainability, Kindred said that in 2021, 61 per cent of its electricity use came from renewable sources. It added that eco-sustainability will be a major focus as staff return to offices following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Kindred Group CEO Henrik Tjärnström said: “Looking ahead, I see an exciting future for Kindred. Over ten years ago we embarked on a strategy to transform ourselves and overtime only operate in locally licensed markets.

“In 2020 we took the decision to adapt the organisation for this future based on scalability, compliance and differentiation. In the final quarter of 2021, we derived 77 per cent of our gross winnings revenue from locally licensed markets and have proved we can be scalable in these markets with solid bottom-line growth.”

Kindred recently announced that it was recruiting staff to work on the development of its proprietary sportsbook. Meanwhile, the group has continued to refuse to leave the Norwegian market despite the threat of fines.