Kindred will use its front-of-shirt sponsorship space with Middlesbrough and Rangers to promote its responsibility goals.

UK.- Kindred Group has announced that it will use its football sponsorship space to promote its safer gambling efforts during the UK’s Safer Gambling Week. It will replace the Unibet logos on its front-of-shirt sponsorship of the English Championship’s Middlesbrough and the Scottish Premiership’s Rangers during the week-long initiative, which starts today and runs until October 23.

The shirts will not actually promote Safer Gambling Week itself but Kindred’s own Zero % Mission, through which it aims to generate 0 per cent of its revenue from harmful gambling by the end of next year. The operator’s latest data show that the figure is currently at 3.3 per cent.

Middlesbrough will wear Zero % Mission shirts during its Championship matches against Wigan Athletic on October 19 and Huddersfield Town on October 22. Rangers will wear the special shirts during their Scottish League Cup quarter-final game against Dundee on October 19. There will also be Zero % Mission branding on Kindred’s website, social media, LED advertising and other screens.

Kindred’s UK general manager Neil Banbury said: “We’re committed to implementing a new kind of sponsorship model together with the clubs and communities we support. As we enter Safer Gambling Week, it’s a good time to reflect on the continued progress we have made in terms of protecting customers, as well as the improvements we continue to make through advances in our technology and processes. 

“We are on a journey and still have further to go, but we are confident that our approach is delivering results.”

Kindred ceases operating in Norway

Kindred Group’s Trannel subsidiary has announced that it is no longer targeting consumers in Norway. As a result, the Norwegian gambling regulator Lotteritilsynet has put a pause on its scheduled daily fines against the operator. 

Kindred has long held out in Norway, continuing to offer gaming without a local licence in defiance of Norway’s state monopoly on gaming. When the national regulator announced last month that it would begin issuing daily fines, Kindred initially said that it would continue regardless and appeal against the fines in court.

Kindred said that it was only pausing Norwegian operations to show goodwill and that it remained confident in its interpretation of its legal position according to EEA law. Lotteritilsynet was going to fine Kindred NOK1.198m (€115,000) for every day that it continued to offer gaming in Norway, starting from October 5.