Kindred Group announced a renewal of its partnership with EPIC Risk Management as part of its policy of reaching “net zero” revenue from harmful gambling by the end of 2023.
This comes after Kindred revealed that in the third quarter of 2022 the company’s share of the revenue from unhealthy gambling increased by 0.5 percentage points in comparison to the results from the 2021 Q3. Gross earnings from high-risk players were 3.8% of Kindred’s total revenue versus 3.3% in the year-ago quarter.
Decline of the “Improvement Effect”
The so-called “improvement effect” after intervention fell from 84.7% in the second quarter to 82.6% in the third quarter. However, it still showed some improvement in comparison to Q4 2021’s 79.2%. The online gambling operator has been focused on improving its internal procedures and automating interventions with the help of technical resources.
Achieving the goal of zero revenue from high-risk players by the end of the fourth quarter of next year may result challenging for Kindred, but Kindred remains “fully dedicated” to reaching the target.
Henrik Tjärnström, chief executive officer of Kindred, commented that despite the fact that the company did not manage to reach the expected results for this quarter, it had taken a number of significant steps towards the zero revenue from harmful gambling since launching the plan in 2021.
The online gaming operator first announced its “Journey to Zero” strategy in 2019 with the ambition of reaching the target by the end of 2023.
Collaboration with EPIC to Complete the “Journey to Zero” Strategy
In order to reach its ambition, Kindred renewed its collaboration with EPIC Risk Management hoping to ensure the better placement of manual interventions in the client journey and push customers to healthier gambling practices with the help of EPIC’s extensive knowledge and experience. Having zero revenue from harmful gambling needs a strong collaboration between the gaming sector, regulatory bodies, researchers, and other key shareholders.
Dan Spencer, director of safer gambling at EPIC Risk Management, stated that they were “delighted” with the renewal of the collaboration and its extension within the next three years. He also commented that Kindred has been the first operator that EPIC worked with and the online gaming operator continued to show “its commitment” towards the protection of customers.
Tjärnström further commented that Kindred’s commitment extended beyond 2023. The partnership between the gaming operator and EPIC was another example, which showed how gambling companies could reach their customers through such collaborations in an easier way. He expressed his gratefulness and pride in the long-term collaboration between Kindred and EPIC.