Kindred Group reaffirms commitment to make gambling ‘100% enjoyable’

Kindred Group reaffirmed its commitment to ensuring gambling is ‘100 per cent enjoyable’ as it notes its ‘clear ambition’ that none of its revenue will be derived from harmful gambling by the end of 2023.

Publishing its ‘2020 Sustainability Report’, which outlines progress on core objectives related to social responsibility, safer gambling, customer care and employee wellbeing, Kindred noted that the share of revenue derived from high-risk customers was 3.4 per cent in Q4 2020. 

2020 saw Kindred become the first publicly listed online gambling firm to disclose ‘transparent KPIs’ tracking the percentage of gross-win revenues derived from harmful gambling. 

Transparent KPIs have been added to the Stockholm group’s financial reporting duties, as Kindred marks out its headline objective of achieving ‘zero per cent revenue from harmful gambling by 2023’.

“Getting to zero will not be an easy task, but we are confident we can get there through collaboration with researchers, investing in technology, and working with regulators to secure a robust regulated market,” Henrik Tjärnström, Kindred Group CEO, remarked.

Supporting its long-term sustainability objectives and social responsibility duties, Kindred’s board revised the firm’s ‘purpose statement’ throughout 2020, to ‘transform gambling by being a trusted source of entertainment that contributes positively to society’.

“We rest on our purpose to transform gambling into a more trusted source of entertainment and positive contributor to society,” the firm added. “That includes offering our 30 million customers a superior experience while helping them feel safe and secure.”

Kindred has also enhanced its commitment to utilising tech resources to develop further market-leading safer gambling systems, following on from the success of its proprietary built PS-EDS player intervention and at-risk gambling detection system.

Backing its technology unit, Kindred will continue its multi-million investment in next stage technologies, incorporating ‘behavioural research and predictive artificial intelligence’ to minimise the player risks of its future products and current inventories.   

The report also highlighted its confidence in achieving its objective while Kindred maintains its growth momentum, in which the company achieved a number of business milestones during 2020. 

Maintaining its growth trajectory, during 2020 Kindred surpassed £1.1bn in group gross winnings, recording an average of 46 million customer transactions per day.

Kindred’s revised approach sees the company place sustainability remits across all operating divisions of the company, encompassing tech, marketing, product management, compliance, HR and customer service.

Boardroom-level changes saw Kindred become the first online gambling company to incorporate a ‘Sustainability Council’ placing the firm’s social responsibility mandate alongside corporate governance, risk, compliance and auditing duties.

“It is my firm belief that sustainability needs to be an integrated part of our corporate strategy, governance process and business model,” explained Tjärnström.

“To ensure we move in this direction we have set up a Sustainability Council and a Governance, Risk and Compliance Council. These groups work to establish cross-functional integration across Kindred and ensure we continue to make progress on our sustainability commitments.”

In addition, Kindred brand sponsorships ,which include Swedish Elite Football, Derby County, Club Brugge, Paris Saint Germain, and the European Football for Development, will be focused on solely achieving ‘positive community outcomes’