Kindred Group reveals sustainability measures following uptick in low-risk player revenue

Kindred Group has reported a 42.7% increase in gross winnings revenue shares from low-risk players as the operator continues to drive towards a more sustainable future.

Publishing its Annual and Sustainability Report for 2021, Kindred revealed that in Q4 2021, revenue share derived from low-risk players jumped to 24.7% compared to 17.3% in 2020.

The operator hopes to achieve 0% revenue from harmful gambling by next year in line with the group’s zero initiative.

Kindred revealed in February that 4% of its revenue in Q4 2021 came from the proceeds of harmful gambling. This a reduction from 4.3% posted in 2020 but still leaves a way to go in achieving the goal with less than a year to go.

Kindred CEO Henrik Tjärnström said: “Our dedicated focus on being a leader in sustainability led us to an important decision in February 2021 when we became the first gambling operator to publicly report on our share of revenue from high-risk customers, with a clear ambition to reach zero revenue from gambling harm by 2023.

“I firmly believe that gambling can make a major positive contribution to our society and should only ever be a source of entertainment for our customers,” he added.

Kindred also extended the use of control tools promoted to its customers, which saw customer care teams target 18-24-year-old players and establish “tailored approaches that have already provided benefits”.

Kindred has made some future commitments to try and achieve the goals it had set out previously.

The operator wants to extend its player detection system so that the variables and markets it detects are as close to real-time as physically possible.

Kindred also expects to further refine the communications on gambling behaviour and evolve its assistance packages to align with customer risk levels.

The firm has already added 24 new criteria to monitor its player base from “web analytics, risk calculations and new data points to improve the outcome of detection accuracy”.

Eco-sustainability is also part of Kindred’s ESG push as its employees return to its offices across the world following the pandemic. The firm hopes to achieve this by cutting carbon emissions from its offices, data centres, business travel and commuting.

Kindred will also look to switch to renewable power sources where feasible.

Finally, the operator has also pledged to build external gender talent pipelines for critical roles and enhance its senior leader selection process. Kindred will also look to globalise its gender pay gap reporting in real-time and widen to include more demographics.

Tjärnström said: “Looking ahead, I see an exciting future for Kindred. Over ten years ago, we embarked on a strategy to transform ourselves and, over time, only operate in locally licensed markets. In the final quarter of 2021, we derived 77% of our gross winnings revenue from locally licensed markets and have proved we can be scalable in these markets with solid bottom-line growth.

“We have pushed through a difficult time and are ready to take on newly licensed markets such as the Netherlands in Europe, as well as further expansion in North America,” he concluded.