Svenska Spel, a Swedish gambling company has announced it will begin to report the percentage of its revenue that comes from clients with lower risks of developing gambling disorders.
Svenska Spel will publish its first figures for the second quarter of the year at the end August. This revenue data will be included in the operator’s regular quarterly reporting.
Svenska Spel acknowledged that the majority of their players control gambling, and are responsible for the bulk of Svenska Spel’s revenue. It also acknowledges some of its revenue is from players who have suffered gambling-related harm.
Playscan, the operator’s analysis tool, will use risk models to determine which customers fall into each group. They were developed with Sustainable Interaction a specialist independent in responsible gambling.
Svenska Spel to boost trust in the gambling sector
Svenska Spel has had this issue on its radar for quite some time. In May 20, 2021, the then-CEO Patrik Höbauer urged for greater transparency in reporting revenues gained from harmful gaming.
Anna Johnson, the new CEO of Xerox Corporation is also presumably in a similar frame of mind. She stated that providing more information on “healthy revenue” will increase the trust of investors in the industry as a group.
Johnson stated that “by reporting our healthy share of revenue and our efforts to combat gambling problems, it’s possible to run gambling companies in a sustainable manner.” It is a significant step towards increasing trust in the gambling industry.
Svenska Spel Chairman Erik Strand said: “All gambling companies that are serious work hard to protect their clients and reduce the numbers of people who end up in trouble.
In order to improve transparency, the report of revenue from healthy gambling is an important part of responsible gambling.
More transparency from Svenska Spek
Svenska Spel isn’t the only company to make efforts towards greater transparency.
The operator will begin revealing its responsible gambling practices in 2022 along with Kindred Group, ATG and ATG. Every six months, data is submitted to the Swedish regulator Spelinspektionen.
Published in February 2019, the latest data sets covers six months up to December 31, 2023. This was the third data update published after H2 for 2022 and last year’s H1.
Svenska Spel reported that it had reached 1.9% of Swedish clients during the period under review. Of the people it talked to, 74.8% had reduced their gaming and 49.7% their average deposit.
Svenska Spel said that 9.4% of players contacted self-excluded themselves for a minimum six month period, and 3.7’% for even longer.
Kindred went a step beyond this, and revealed how much money it makes from gambling that is harmful every quarter.
Kindred reported that harmful gambling was responsible for 3,2% of revenue during Q1 2018. It was an increase from the Q4 of last year, but still less than 3.3% for Q1 2023.
Kindred reported that the number of players who improved their behaviour after being intervened on had also decreased slightly. In the detected players who were contacted in this period, 87.1% displayed improved behavior.
When examining a longer period, the group noted that improvements were “sustained”. The Q1 rate of 87.1% was higher than the Q2 and Q3 rates in 2023.
