Svenska Spel wants reporting system for revenue from harmful gambling

Svenska Spel’s CEO Patrik Hofbauer has said gaming operators should be more transparent when it comes to reporting the proportion of revenue taken through harmful gambling.

Sweden.- Patrik Hofbauer, CEO of Swedish gaming operator Svenska Spel, has called for a national system to be implemented to ensure transparency in the reporting of revenue from harmful gambling.

Speaking at a digital seminar, Hofbauer praised the initiative taken by Kindred Group to begin reporting what proportion of revenue it believed had come from customers with gambling problems.

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Kindred, whose chief executive Henrik Tjärnström also participated in the seminar, reported in February that 4 per cent of its earnings in the previous quarter had come from problem gambling. Svenska Spel has yet to publish data of its own.

Hofbauer said: “We think that Kindred’s initiative is great, as comparability is critical for credibility.”

However, he said that there could be many different ways of measuring harmful gambling. As a result, he called for the creation of a single nationwide system of measurement to provide consistency

He said: “I think we have great conditions to create a common model here in Sweden that could also be used by other countries.

“The Swedish gaming companies have driven the digital development of the gaming industry. Now maybe we can go to the front here too.”

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Tjärnström said Kindred had been working on publishing data on the issue for years.

He said: “Now we measure more on behavioural science factors than before and with AI and emerging data capacity, we believe that we will be able to work very effectively in this issue.”

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