Personal touch: Why Entain believes customised player protection is the way forward

It’s the day after World Environment Day and it is perhaps fitting that I’m speaking to Entain, an operator that prides itself on its environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials. Earlier this year, in February, the business was recognised for its leadership in this area as the only global sports betting and gaming group included in the S&P Global Sustainability Yearbook 2022.

Among its environmental goals, Entain aims to be carbon net zero by 2035 and is planting one million trees in the Entain Forest. The company’s 2021-2022 ESG report revealed a 7% reduction in absolute greenhouse gas emissions from 2020, with 100% renewable energy used by its UK and ROI retail estate.

Last November, the FTSE 100 firm held its inaugural ‘Entain Sustain’ event in London, showcasing its commitment to safer betting and gaming and how the Entain Foundation is supporting local communities and sports. Grainne Hurst, director of corporate affairs, highlights this as one of her three proudest moments since joining Entain in March 2018 as part of the Ladbrokes Coral acquisition.

“We were the first in the industry to showcase all we’re doing in the sustainability and ESG space. We had a really varied day, with a great turnout, and we were discussing some quite meaty issues. We’ve had really good feedback both internally and externally about being willing to open the door and showcase what we do,” she says. The operator plans to run the event again this year.

Hurst’s other notable achievement was when Entain won the safer gambling operator of the year award at the EGR Operator Awards 2020. Why these accolades are so important is to move away from the “tick-box exercise of making sure safer gambling is on the agenda to leading, owning and being recognised for it,” she explains.

As a working mother, Hurst is extremely proud of Entain’s number one position in the All-In Diversity’s All-Index list in 2020 for its commitment to diversity and inclusion. This is something she is particularly passionate about as a woman on the senior leadership team and chair of the Women@Entain network.

Inspiring others

The internal network, launched on International Women’s Day this year and which boasts 500 members, gives female employees the chance to learn from each other, make friends and offer support. It also provides mentoring and sponsorship opportunities. Hurst elaborates: “We have a secure space now at Entain where women can come together and debate certain issues. They can also call for different types of assistance they’re looking for, to further their careers and professional experience or to just connect with other people in the business.”

While 40% of Entain’s board are female, there are just eight female CEOs in EGR’s Power 50 2021 ranked companies, so having Jette Nygaard-Andersen at the helm presents the younger generation of women with someone to look up to. Hurst emphasises the importance of quashing the stereotypical view of gambling being a male-dominated industry. “I think role models are really important in encouraging the younger generation to look at our sector as a potential future career prospect for them.

“Entain is already doing some of this with organisations like Girls Who Code who are trying to encourage and inspire young girls into STEM-related topics. And I think partnerships and role models are important in showcasing to young women, females entering the workforce or even women just wanting to change career, that actually this is a welcoming place for you to be able to progress in,” she asserts.

Building on these existing partnerships, in November 2021 the London-listed operator launched a global programme called EnTrain to promote increased access to, and diversity within, technology. It has a target of positively impacting the lives of one million people globally by 2030.

As a senior leader, Hurst acts as a mentor and shares her experiences and career path with female colleagues, whether it’s informally over a coffee or more formally through regular meetings to discuss their goals and objectives.

On the agenda

Hurst has had a varied career, having worked in public affairs for the Royal British Legion and Asda while also dipping her toes into the world of politics. In April 2010, she joined the House of Commons as a parliamentary researcher in the office of MP Philip Davies. She described her time there as a “baptism of fire” as she worked for an MP who liked to get stuck into challenging issues.

After two years in that role and a short break from politics, she returned to work as a special adviser for the UK government in July 2014 when David Cameron was Prime Minister. Following that, Hurst left to join Ladbrokes Coral as head of public affairs in June 2015. Despite it being her first position in the gambling sector, Hurst attributes her family’s own love of horseracing as giving her a taste for the industry.

The fast pace of betting is really what attracted her to make the switch from politics. “In government, obviously things move quite slowly. And while it’s very interesting, it can be quite glacial at times, which we will probably come back to when we talk about the gambling act review,” she quips.

In her current role, Hurst splits her days between international regulatory affairs, safer gambling strategy and political lobbying. The former involves looking at what’s happening around the world from a regulatory perspective in the sector as well as responding, debating and researching key issues. The other aspect of her role focuses on working with the safer gambling team to analyse, test and learn Entain’s Advanced Responsibility and Care (ARC) programme to see how it is working, and highlight any improvements that can be made. On the political lobbying side, Hurst talks to politicians, regulators, charities and third-sector stakeholders to get a better understanding of what they want to achieve and how to work together.

In Entain’s Sustainability Charter, launched in November 2020, one of the four cornerstones is continuing to take a lead on responsible gaming. ARC uses AI to learn and identify risks in player behaviour and epitomises just one of the ways in which the business hopes to achieve a leadership position. Using behavioural indicators, data science and analytics, ARC allows the operator to track risky play and intervene with customers in an individualised way.

“We’ve worked with organisations like the Harvard Medical School, and also some lived-experience experts in Epic Risk Management who are former gambling addicts, to identify what the markers of protection should be.”

In November 2021, Entain released data from its ARC trials across its UK brands. The results demonstrate a 120% uplift in the use of safer gambling tools by customers that Entain has intervened with, and a reduction of a third of customers moving into risker-playing brackets. While ARC has only been rolled out in the UK, Hurst confirms there are plans to launch it on an international scale as well as across other products like esports. “We’ve started with the UK because it’s obviously our biggest market. And we’ll be testing and learning how we can tweak it based on particular countries or particular products,” she adds.

Personalising the protection of its customers through ARC is something that Hurst feels very strongly about. “One of my big bugbears is blanket measures to protect customers because all our customers are different. They like to play different products at different times of the day with different staking levels. So, to have a blanket approach to an entire customer base just seems crazy,” she argues.

Get your Act together

Hurst would also like to see a blanket approach avoided in the Gambling Act 2005 review. “We know that if you implement blanket restrictions, in some of our other markets, all that you do is actually penalise customers and end up sending them to the black market where there are no safer gambling measures or protections in place. So, what we’d like to see is more player protection, but in a more personalised approach.”

Entain welcomes the review and Hurst acknowledges, like many others in the industry, that the 2005 act is not fit for purpose in a digital age. “We’re hoping for an evidence-based and proportionate approach to the amendment, so it definitely needs to be updated.”

Grainne Hurst

At the time of writing, the long-overdue white paper was said to be just weeks away. However, media reports at the end of May suggested the review could be watered down following opposition from UK operators and suppliers. A number of media sources speculated that a football shirt sponsorship ban and mandatory levy could now be off the table. Entain committed to end football shirt sponsorship and perimeter board advertising in UK football in 2019 and is keen to see this replicated in the review.

Commenting on the rumours over the levy, Hurst says: “We have voluntarily agreed to increase our donations to research, education and treatment from 0.1% to 1% and we think we’ll get there in 2023. We are keen to see a level playing field or a consistency in that space.”

Other aspects Hurst expects from the review are stake limits and affordability thresholds. “We would just encourage the government to make sure they’re not blanket and draconian but more measured and personalised,” she discloses.

When the company rebranded from GVC Holdings to Entain in December 2020, growth and sustainability was on an equal footing in its core business strategy. “We genuinely believe that only the most responsible operator is going to be the most sustainable operator in the long run,” emphasises Entain’s director of corporate affairs.

Safety in numbers

While rival Flutter Entertainment has been vocal about seeing a £30m hit from safer gambling measures over the past year, Entain takes a different stance, instead viewing it as just the cost of doing business and being a licensed operator. Hurst remarks: “I think everybody has had to take some financial trimmings through having to try and foresee regulation coming down the track and being a bit more proactive about it. But we have baked it in and we just see that as business as usual rather than a financial hit.”

Referring to one of the four cornerstones of Entain’s Sustainability Charter, Hurst says the business is doing what it can to get ahead of regulation. “One thing we said we would do is only operate in regulated markets by the end of 2023.” In Entain’s 2021-2022 ESG report, it stated that over 99% of revenue was derived from regulated markets in 2021.

In addition to regulation, responsibility and corporate governance, the final cornerstone in the charter is people and communities. The Entain Foundation launched in September 2019 to coordinate and support the group’s CSR initiatives, objectives and donations. The foundation has also committed to donating £100m to good causes over the next five years.

Two of the most prominent projects are its partnership with SportsAid and the Pitching In programme. With SportsAid, the Entain Foundation has provided funding to 150 young, aspiring athletes to help them in their journey to compete at the next Olympic and Paralympic Games. The foundation has doubled its financial backing to £500,000 for the charity in the run up to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.

The other scheme supporting grassroots sports is the Pitching In programme, which is in partnership with the Trident Leagues and made up of the Northern Premier League, Isthmian League and Southern League. Here, the foundation can support local clubs in a variety of ways such as by providing volunteers as stewards, replacing team kits, helping to sell tickets, etc. In May 2022, the Pitching In Volunteer Hub was introduced where Entain staff can type in their postcode and sign up to assist their local football teams.

While some might think Entain has lofty ambitions when it comes to ESG and leading the way as a responsible operator, Hurst admits there is always more work to be done. “We’ll know we’re improving if we see the numbers of problem gamblers decreasing, see organisations hitting their emissions targets and the number of women in the industry increasing.” Every little helps, and you just might bump into Hurst doing her bit for the community as a steward at Harrow Football Club from next season.