EGBA: Safer gambling messaging increases as top execs call for black-market focus
Annual sustainability report details improvements for affiliated operators as CEOs pen open letter
Operators across Europe sent out 45.5 million safer gambling messages last year, representing a 20% increase in output from the previous year.
According to the European Gaming and Betting Association’s (EGBA) latest sustainability report, published on 13 July, members of the body scaled up efforts around safer gambling messaging alongside a slew of other improvements.
Of those customers who received safer gambling messaging, 21.7 million were personalised, representing a 42% yearly increase.
Additionally, the share of personalised messaging rose to 48% across all safer gambling communications, up from 40% the previous year.
The report found affiliated operators considerably increased the number of employees to receive dedicated safer gambling training by 5% to 76%.
Elsewhere, the report noted the total number of customer accounts had jumped 5% to 31.2 million, with 74% of those account holders being male.
The number of customers using at least one safer gambling tool increased to 18.4 million, or 60% of all customers.
Deposit limits were the most popular tool, accounting for 67% of all safer gambling aids used by customers.
Time limit/reality checks were the second most popular, while self-exclusion schemes ranked third.
Elsewhere, contributions to research, education and treatment (RET) across Europe jumped 109% to €49m while donations to charities and community schemes decreased 5% to €127m.
The report also contained a joint letter from the CEOs of bet365, Flutter Entertainment, Betsson Group, Kindred, Entain and 888.
In the letter, signed by John Coates, Peter Jackson, Jesper Svensson, Nils Andén, Jette Nygaard-Andersen and Nir Hakarmeli [Mr Green CEO], the execs took the opportunity to focus on the growth of the black market.
The group said: “A priority of all regulations should be to ensure that customers play within the regulated market, where they are best protected against the thousands of unregulated black-market websites based outside the EU.
“Unlike regulated businesses like our own, black-market operators don’t offer any safeguards to their customers, yet they unfortunately are the first to benefit from well-intentioned but suboptimal regulation that render the regulated offer less competitive and less attractive to the customer than the black-market alternative.
“For regulations to be successful, they must allow an attractive player proposition to be offered within the regulated market.”
Maarten Haijer, EGBA secretary general, said: “We’re delighted that our members continue to make positive progress in their efforts to promote safer gambling. This is all part of their commitment to put a sustainable approach to gambling at the heart of what they do.
“The contribution of our CEOs in this report demonstrates their personal and crucial commitment to the collective sustainability drive of the association.
“We’re particularly pleased this year to expand the scope of our sustainability reporting and to publish for the first-time new data points about our members’ progress in the areas of employment and diversity, as well as metrics on energy and environmental performance,” he added.
Some examples include Betsson’s commitment to supporting Ukraine and 888’s 44% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2022 versus the 2019 baseline.