An inside look at how Betsson is creating a responsible gambling-led business

Responsible or safer gambling may be the egaming industry’s topic-du-jour, but as any politician will tell you there is a fine line between talking the talk and walking the walk. Many operators will wax lyrical about how they have responsible gambling at the heart of their business but will still be seen by many as sacrificing this philosophy to aid their bottom line.

But for online gambling and sports betting firm Betsson Group, responsible gambling is on the agenda the second a new employee walks through the door. Indeed, under current training procedures, all new employees receive three days of onboarding training. During this training they are familiarised with the different departments’ roles within the wider organisation and practical arrangements for living and working in Malta.

This is where Betsson’s manager for responsible gambling, Hillevi Stuhrenberg, comes in as she explains: “I work together with one of my colleagues to give all our new hires an hour-long overview of responsible gambling at that point during those first three days when they are onboarding.”

Betsson has several online training modules, updated on an arising basis to include new regulatory changes which its employees need to be aware of. The operations team, which includes customer service and RG, also has a dedicated knowledge-based resource for its employees, which acts as a checking mechanism in areas including responsible gambling. As Stuhrenberg states, employees just need to know “when to escalate, how to escalate and where to escalate to”. These escalations could range from customer service enquiries to AML and risk and fraud queries, which may not have been necessarily identified quickly had the knowledge base and training not existed.

Hillevi Stuhrenberg, Betsson
Responsible onboarding
In addition to the mandatory training during the onboarding process, new employees within Betsson’s customer service team receive intense training face-to-face, with a dedicated training team, in cooperation with the responsible gambling team and Stuhrenberg. However, it’s not just these two-hour sessions, team leaders institute training sessions whenever a customer-facing responsible gambling issue pops up on an arising basis.

Indeed, as she explains, training goes hand in hand with the rest of the customer support Betsson offers. “This would be things like explaining all the different tools, how they work and why we offer them, analysing examples of day-to-day RG issues etc. There’s a lot more than just those purely dedicated training slots,” Stuhrenberg adds.

The live training sessions for Betssonites also feature external trainers, as the firm is keen to get benefits from individuals working outside the organisation and sometimes outside of the industry itself, but in fields that are of relevance to the debate. However, in a departure from the procedures of some other operators, Betsson doesn’t utilise former problem gamblers in its RG-led training.

As an organisation, Betsson Group operates a value foundation model consisting of three main objectives. The first is One Betsson, which simply put is the drive for all offices, departments and individuals to come together as one business. Secondly, the company aims to work with passion on all areas of egaming because individuals who are passionate about egaming are more likely to create a growing business. It is the final value, that of playing fair which is the most important to Betsson from an RG perspective, something which Stuhrenberg believes is the most important because “it’s the right thing to do”. As she explains, treating players fairly is included within its employee satisfaction survey, collected yearly, in which Betsson asks if it is a socially responsible operator (note 89% of employees thought so in the last survey).

Results of this survey are provided to both senior level executives on the Betsson board and shareholders of the company as part of its key performance indicators (KPIs). As Stuhrenberg explains, the company is including RG within key KPIs on training, “whether it has been delivered, attended and the uptake of our responsible gambling tools feature within the information we are providing to the board and stockholders. So, they have a strong interest in us being a responsible operator”.

The primary reasoning behind including responsible gambling and RG-led training within Betsson’s key performance indicators is to increase awareness and reach those not directly involved in the process. “Those who have customer-facing functions, they know what we do in terms of responsible gambling, what we encounter and what the standards are.

“However, there might be a layer of employees within the firm which do not come into contact with customers that often or see that side of the business and don’t really understand what we are doing in RG on a day-to-day basis,” Stuhrenberg adds.
Winning hearts and minds
Just recently, Betsson Group has launched a totally new external website dedicated to responsible gambling and corporate social responsibility initiatives. The site, www.onebetsson.com, explains what most of the firm’s responsible gambling tools do, something which Stuhrenberg believes is beneficial for employees’ as well as customers’, investors’ and other stakeholders’ understanding of RG at Betsson Group.

But far from resting on its laurels, Stuhrenberg states Betsson’s mindset is “we can always do more, we can always improve”, an improvement she herself has seen during her 12 years at the heart of Betsson’s RG team. She points to a rise in “growth and maturity” in the industry during her tenure, particularly in recognising where things are going wrong.

“This is not saying that we can’t with new technology and making use of AI, for example, become better at what we’re doing and possibly also work more on the responsible gambling mindset across the company, ”Stuhrenberg comments.

On the need for utilisation of technological advances in addressing responsible gambling, Betsson has introduced a new AI-led online real time RG messaging tool for gamblers. Currently still in the testing phase, the project delivers responsible gambling messaging while they are playing and is being tested in two challenging markets: Sweden and the UK. This project is perhaps unique, in that it will be the first time Betsson has used AI-led tech within its customer messaging. The AI checks player behaviour in respect of thresholds and behaviours from a certain amount of time and if these thresholds are met it triggers the messaging. Testing something with such wide-ranging implications for players in key markets is essential for an international player like Betsson. “Testing and continuously calibrating something with such wide-ranging implications for players in key markets is essential for an international player like Betsson, making sure it has the desired effect,” says Stuhrenberg.
Changing the mindset
As recent evidence shows, having a responsible gambling culture is becoming a large part of an operator’s offering, but for Stuhrenberg that is something which will increase in the future. She cites the public climate around gambling, particularly in jurisdictions like the UK, which for her is “a challenging one, where operators need to show what they are doing to address public concerns around gambling-related harm. We need to showcase our efforts in a public way to educate players and society about RG”.

Some operators, particularly in the UK, have done things in a very public way with their own campaigns, which Stuhrenberg believes is really good, especially if these sorts of initiatives come organically from the companies themselves as opposed to a reactive result of any regulatory action.

For its part, Betsson is doing valuable work in promoting an RG-led culture in its back-end processes, things Stuhrenberg believes “may not be as eye-catching as those sorts of commitments but can be more effective”. Working in the background allows Betsson to constantly improve and refine its responsible gambling practices, allowing the operator to concentrate on minimising gambling-related harm among its players and in keeping with the company’s value culture of playing fair.

Responsible gambling and corporate social responsibility are often used within the same breath, the inference being that to be a responsible gambling company, the operator first needs to be socially responsible within the wider community. It’s a relatively new approach in addressing an age-old problem of the perception of gambling firms among the communities they serve.
Taking it up a notch
However, as Betsson Group’s chief human resources officer Lena Nordin explains, the issue of corporate social responsibility is something that has always been close to its heart, but of late the operator has taken this to the next level. Nordin explains: “Our CEO Jesper Svensson felt that we as a company could do more when it comes to CSR and he therefore initiated the development of a global CSR strategy.”

The global strategy has three goals: take part and give back to the wider community; engage and empower so-called Betssonites and strengthen Betsson’s position as a leading operator in responsible gaming. Nordin explains how this plays out at an office level: “Each location has a committee tasked with proposing local engagement activities, big and small.”

The initiatives are then brought forward to the CSR board, comprised of the CEO, CFO, COO and CHRO and a representative from the mother company, Betsson AB. The role of the board after this point is to decide which activities to go ahead with and ensure efficient use of resources in meeting these goals. Each office has its own CSR community headed up by Betsson HR personnel, with the aim of encouraging employees to feel they are part of the wider Betsson community. However, any member of staff can forward suggestions to the committee and there’s a lot of interest among employees in supporting a wide variety of events and several worthwhile charities.

Lena Nordin, Betsson
Keeping RG at the heart of Betsson
At the top of this feature, emphasis was put on not only being able to talk the talk but being able to walk the walk with responsible gambling. In addressing this, Nordin points to the appointment of Stuhrenberg as one of the industry’s first responsible gaming managers over 12 years ago, at a time when RG was something which didn’t enter the heads of many regulators and operators.

Today, Betsson has a dedicated RG team numbering eight members, which supports the company in both dealing with consumers and in its aim of becoming a truly responsible operator. Nordin believes some operators target effective RG measures because they are something which is “nice to have” but are ultimately dismissive of the need for such programmes. However, for Nordin, and indeed Betsson, effective RG is something which is a “must have” for operators today.

“Responsible gaming is also important for our employees and investors. Our employee survey shows that our Betssonites are proud of working with us and that 89% consider Betsson to be a responsible operator,” explains Nordin. She believes responsible gambling is playing an important role in getting customers, investors and employees alike to buy into the Betsson brand.

She points to the significant number of individuals seeking out Betsson as an employer, with the company receiving over 3,000 job applications a month, as evidence of how an RG-led philosophy aids the brand’s positive perception. “We want customers to continue to choose us, we want investors to continue to choose us and we want talent to continue to choose us, and responsible gaming definitely plays an important part in that choice,” Nordin adds.

If anything, Nordin believes the company needs to be more active in shouting about its local engagement efforts, stating her belief that greater advertising may prompt others to follow suit. “We hope that our involvement might inspire others to do the same or even better. I think this is one area where we (operators) put competition aside and try to support and encourage each other,” she adds.

When asked what the future holds for Betsson in CSR, Nordin remains tight-lipped but says the company is planning several initiatives, subject to internal review. “What I can say is that the initiatives that really excite us are the ones which, in one way or another, involve the participation of Betssonites. Donating money to a cause is good but we prefer the ones where we can be active and bring about a change with our participation,” Nordin adds.