Kindred renews focus on “Journey to Zero”

A new panel will provide input as Kindred aims to eliminate revenue from harmful gambling.

Sweden.- Kindred Group has announced that it is inching towards achieving its sustainability goals of making 0 per cent revenue from harmful gambling. It reported that 3.3 per cent of revenue came from harmful gambling in Q4 2022, down from 3.8% in Q3 and equal to Q1 and Q2.

However, that still leaves some distance for it to meet its target of 0 per cent this year. The operator is working with several advisors on the objective, with EPIC Risk Management joining BetKnowMore and DealMeOut on its Journey to Zero panel. The panel will host focus groups and workshops and assess Kindred’s Player Safety – Early Detection system to identify areas for improvement.

Kindred Group CEO Henrik Tjärnström said: “I’m glad to see that the share of revenue from harmful gambling is once again on a downward trajectory.

“However, as we review the trend over these past two years, it is clear that there is still significant fluctuation and that the curve has not been as steadily declining as we hoped. While we have put in a lot of hard work, we have not seen the development needed to deliver on our 2023 ambition. 

“Despite this, we remain firmly committed to our Journey towards Zero, and to do the heavy lifting needed to reach this ambition. We have known from the beginning that we would not solve this overnight and continue to acknowledge the complexity of the task.”

Dan Spencer, EPIC’s director of safer gambling, commented: “EPIC has been working with Kindred for some years now and recently extended that partnership to provide expert insight and consultation to help their Journey towards Zero.

“We want operators to be ambitious in their safer gambling endeavours and encourage collaboration across the industry to achieve this. We are delighted to be able to provide this further consumer insight that ultimately will lead to better player protection.”

In October, Kindred, Svenska Spel and ATG announced that they would make a regular joint publication on problem gambling figures. Published for the first time last month, the unique initiative includes a range of metrics, including the number of customers contacted for displaying problem gambling behaviour.