Flutter Entertainment calls for “race to the top” for safer gambling measures among operators

Flutter Entertainment CEO Peter Jackson has said the firm is on a “race to the top” with its safer gambling strategies following a £30m year-on-year (YoY) loss in Q1 2022 due to the measures. Speaking on a series of investor and press calls following the FTSE 100 operator’s latest financial report, Jackson praised the company’s efforts so far and issued a rally call to the rest of the industry. Recently deployed safer gambling measures include new customers being subject to “tailored monitoring” in the initial period post-registration, with thresholds dependent on age. Flutter has also set a goal at a global level that 75% of active customers will be using its safer gambling tools by 2030, up from just over a third (34.7%) today. By 2026, the target is more than half of customers making use of the tools available across the various brands’ sites and apps. Jackson said: “I think we’ve done an awful lot and we think that we’ve positioned ourselves incredibly well. We made a number of changes to our business over the course of last year, and some of them we made towards the back end of the year. “We have consistently been very progressive with the way in which we’ve tackled and approached safer gambling, trying to engineer a race to the top as we would describe it,” he added. Jackson said the safer gambling measures that had been put in place were done so with one eye on the upcoming review into the Gambling Act 2005, with the operator looking to get ahead of the competition before potentially major legislation changes. He continued: “We are waiting for the government’s white paper to come out, which we hope will level the playing field and encourage other operators to put in place very similar measures to the ones that we have. “We could be required to go further [and] we’ll get more clarity when we see that white paper come out, which we hope will be in the next few weeks.” Touching on the £500 monthly deposit limit for under 25s, another safer gambling measure brought in by the group, Jackson noted the scheme had had an “immaterial” impact on the operator’s UK operations, but highlighted the importance of the measure to support safer gambling. He said: “You’ve got to remember the number of under 25s we have in our [customer] base is quite small. So, any impact is going to be pretty immaterial for the UK as a whole. While we’ve done the right thing, and it is having an impact among a group of customers, it’s immaterial for our UK numbers, albeit I think it is still a very important measure.” Flutter has seen revenue costs due to its safer gambling measures rise consistently over the previous 12 months. In Q1 2021, the operator estimated a £7m revenue cost due to the measures, rising to £19m in Q2 2021, £30m in Q3 and finally £37m in Q4 2021. Last month, Kindred Group CEO Henrik Tjärnström revealed safer gambling measures put in place by the operator had been met with reluctance from its high-value customer base.