Sky Betting and Gaming has pledged £6.182m to GambleAware reports the charity after revealing its donations list for the 2021/22 financial year.
Totalling around £34.7m, excluding regulatory settlements, the voluntary donations from the gambling industry, Betfair also contributed £6m, Ladbrokes Coral offering £4.765m, William Hill donated £4,578,812 and Entain providing £4m.
Received between April 2, 2021 to March 31, 2022, GambleAware currently asks all those who profit from gambling in Britain to donate a minimum of 0.1 per cent of their annual gross gambling yield direct to the charity each year.
“These donations fund essential services for the prevention of gambling harms, helping build a coalition of expertise to tackle and prevent gambling harms across Great Britain,” said Zoë Osmund, GambleAware CEO.
“We welcome the commitment from the ‘Big Four’ operators to increase their donations over the coming years, however, there remains an inconsistent approach to funding across the wider gambling industry, which leads to uncertainty and instability.
“That’s why we are calling on the government to introduce a mandatory levy on the gambling industry as a condition of licence.”
In the latest update, other significant contributors included Stars Interactive (£680,000), Tombola (£663,599) and Hillside (UK Sports) with £2.69m, in addition to the £601,000 from its UK Gaming subsidiary.
Within the gaming sector, Playtech was one of the noticeable contributors with £101,768.46, followed by Platinum Gaming with £92,000. Others included; Broadway Gaming (£72,796), InTouch Games (£56,400), Greentube (£55,000), Red Tiger (£51,000), Videoslots (£50,000), Zecure Gaming (£50,000), White Hat Gaming (£47,230), 32Red (£28,000) and Gamesys (£22,989.47).
Osmund continued: “The gambling industry should take the necessary and responsible steps by matching its success to the scale of gambling harms risk, especially at a time of rising financial and economic hardship across the country.
“This would commit much more funding to treatment, prevention, and research per year – and could be delivered in a matter of months.”
