SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The fourth annual sustainability report of the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA) revealed that members have made significant progress towards safer gambling promotion.
According to the report, 21 million European customers (65%) have used safety tools last year – with 14% of them doing so voluntarily (14% YoY increase).
EGBA members also sent 67.6 million messages to their customers to raise safer gambling awareness, which represents a 49% yearly increase.
Maarten Haijer, Secretary General of EGBA, commented: “We’re pleased to publish our latest sustainability report, highlighting significant progress by our members in many areas of safer gambling, particularly in the roll-out of safety tools and their direct interactions with players about their playing behaviour.
“This demonstrates their collective efforts to embed a sustainable approach to gambling at the heart of what they do. In the report, our CEOs also quite rightly flag their concerns about the growing black market in Europe and the risks it poses to players and the progress made in safer gambling.
“We’re pleased to expand our reporting this year with specific new metrics about the use of safety tools and messages to promote safer play.”
Some of the other key highlights in the paper highlight that deposit limits were the most used safer play tool, with 70% of customers opting in for it.
Customer accounts grew 4% YoY to a total of 32.5 million, with gender share represented by 72% males and 26% females.
In terms of operators’ effectiveness, 80% of all EGBA members’ staff received dedicated safer gambling training – accounting for 45,000 employees across both the online and land-based sectors.
A total of 65% of customers who exhibited problematic behaviour either improved or stabilised their play as a result of the safety messaging campaigns.
Financial contributions to problem gambling research, education and treatment (RET) services across Europe saw a total of €61.2m being allocated, with €151.4m being donated to charities and community initiatives.
Energy consumption metrics across EGBA’s partnership network reached a total of 253.4 GWh across online and land-based operations, with 71.8% of that coming from renewable energy sources.
