Positive steps on Kindred’s idea to eliminate problem gambling

Kindred Group is still making moves to ensure responsible gambling in all its outlets. In April this year, the company announced that only 3.3% of its profits were from high-risk gamblers. The figure is still the same; however, Kindred recently improved its countermeasures.

The company began its “Journey Towards Zero” initiative last year and has come a long way since its launch. The goal is to ensure zero revenue comes to the company from people facing gambling problems. While they are yet to get there, Kindred aspires to get the desired result towards the end of 2023 and will give updates on its progress every quarter.

The 3.3% has stayed the same from the fourth quarter of 2021 until the most recent report. The figure’s steadiness is certainly an indication that the company’s efforts are not in vain. Kindred also announced that since the implementation, several of its clients across its gaming outlets had improved. The improvement rate reportedly increased by almost 20%, moving from 64.9% to 84.7%.

In addition to their efforts to ensure responsible gambling for all age groups, Kindred is paying even more attention to young gamblers. According to research, young people aged 18 to 25 are more vulnerable to getting addicted to gambling than people of other ages. The group also, more often than not, has greater financial struggles than older people, which makes it even more important to protect them.

To this effect, Kindred announced its intention to target these young people in a more personalized and risk-averse manner. In order to do this, the company has reportedly set up spending limits and put humanistic intervention in place. They also revealed that their responsible gambling analysts would be more cautious in handling individuals of that age.

Also, phone calls are one of the means by which Kindred informs players on how to gamble safely. This company’s representatives made over 55,000 calls in 2020 to help gamers better comprehend hazardous gaming and learn how to gamble responsibly.

Kindred promised to increase efficiency

Henrik Tjärnström, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, spoke on the progress and expressed his frustration at Kindred’s inability to reduce the problem gambling profits from its seemingly fixed 3.3%.

He said, “Even though the share from high-risk players is flat between the first and second quarters, it is good to see an increase in the improvement effect after interventions which validates our early intervention approach. However, we still have work to do to further decrease the number towards our ambition of zero percent revenue generated from harmful gambling.”

The CEO revealed that the company would put more effort into identifying high-risk gambling. He also made known how important intervening early was in order to prevent gambling harm.

Trärnström further disclosed that to achieve their goal, Kindred would need to work hand in hand with industry specialists. They are currently in partnership with an online platform named QuitGamble.com, which is set to help gambling addicts. The company is currently publicizing the platform so users have special support channels. The alliance is an offshoot of earlier responsible gaming projects that included RecoverMe and Gamban.

Gambling industry needs standardized approach

While talking about their progress, the Head of Responsible Gaming & Research in Kindred, Maris Boneo, reported on how much the company had achieved via its Journey Towards Zero initiative. She said the company was still practicing transparency and making moves to ensure that the wider industry would toe the same line.

In response to questions on how the company acquired its figures and identified a high-risk customer, Kindred gave an overview of its moves and highlighted several related pages available on its website. The information revealed that the company counted on several factors, including self-exclusion and the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), to determine the program’s success.

This and more shows that much flexibility is present in the company’s statistics. One hitch in this method is that Kindred uses a fixed set of questions, and every survey always has some error, no matter how small. The US National Library of Medicine also claimed that the PGSI system was unsuitable “in assessing low to moderate problem severity, a notable limitation of most brief gambling screens.”

These objections aside, Kindred’s reports are accurate for the most part, and their initiative is needed. It only highlights that to release error-free data, the gambling industry needs to secure a more standardized approach.

The Kindred group just launched in one of its key markets in the Netherlands. They were initially made to leave the Dutch markets in October 2021 after it was re-regulated. The recent move has given the company the much-desired opportunity to regain its base in the country.

More sport & gambling news