Online gamblers in Nordic markets are getting more options for ensuring their play doesn’t turn problematic.
On Tuesday, Unibet’s parent company Kindred Group announced the release of a new Gambling Therapy app for its customers in Nordic markets. The app is free and now available in local languages in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland.
Kindred calls Sweden home, so it has a personal stake in ensuring its homeboys and girls can enjoy their gambling entertainment in a responsible fashion. Maris Bonello, Kindred’s head of integrity and player sustainability research, said the company would “continue to support projects that minimize the harm caused by gambling.”
Kindred collaborated with the UK-based Gambling Therapy to sponsor the development and translation of the app, and Gambling Therapy CEO Adele Duncan said geographic expansion of the app’s usage wouldn’t be possible without funding supplied by the gaming industry.
Meanwhile, Norway’s state-owned online betting monopoly Norsk Tipping has inked a six-year extension of its right to use the Playscan responsible gaming tool of Svenska Spel, Sweden’s state-owned online gambling (for the moment) monopoly.
Playscan, which is also utilized by Finland’s state-run gaming operators, is an interactive tool that allows gamblers to ‘take the temperature’ of their online activity to ensure they’re not straying out of bounds into problem gambling territory. Norsk Tipping first offered Playscan to its customers in 2014.
Norsk Tipping spokesman Bjorn Helge Hoffmann said Playscan’s “tool and risk analysis of our players plays a key role in our efforts to prevent gaming problems.” Annika Hjälm, Svenska Spel’s head of Playscan, said the company put “much effort” into developing “a tool that is based on science and knowledge on problem gambling.”
