Together, online gambling operator Kindred Group (KINDSDB:Stockholm) and the Foundation for Social Welfare Services hosted the Responsible Gaming Conference 2017 on Wednesday, September 20 on Malta. Two-hundred and seventy delegates were in attendance at the sold-out InterContinental Malta St. Julians where experts from the gaming industry, treatment centers, academia and regulators all agreed on heightening collaboration efforts to aid in minimizing problem gambling, according to the news release.

In concluding his opening remarks, Kindred’s CEO, Henrik Tjärnström, noted that customers who have challenges or problems with gambling, are not good for business. Tjärnström went on to say that while customers make informed adult choices, operators have a standard of care to patrons to educate, create awareness and to prevent problem gambling.

Collaboration and the sharing of knowledge were stressed throughout the conference, along with data across regulators, operators and researchers being key factors in gaining knowledge about problem gambling. The results of which can minimize the harmful effects of problem gambling.

Key-note speakers at the one-day event included founder and Principle of consumer research hub Sophro, Dr Jonathan Parke and Nottingham Trent University Professor Mark Griffiths, who both presented important data from recent research about problem gambling.

“Kindred Group has played a critical role for executing research on problem gambling. During a time when industry collaboration in gambling research is attracting heavy criticism, we want to draw attention to this collaboration as an example of how industry can add value without any expectation of influence over any stage of research process. In this research, Kindred Group provided access to their data and customers, and provided significant manpower to meet our demanding data requests. The first time they will see how the data was used will be after it is published for full public consumption”, said Dr Parke.

Professor Griffiths said, “The real value of our research is when operators and regulators actually apply the findings to develop their operations and the work they do.”

One-hundred percent of the proceeds from the event will go to local treatment center, Agenzija Appogg.