Flutter: Our mission to lead betting and gaming into the future, responsibly and sustainably

06.12.2022

By Sue Albion, Group Director of Sustainability and Regulatory Affairs, Flutter.

In 2021, we set about opening a new and exciting chapter in Flutter’s history with the development of our first global sustainability strategy, our Positive Impact Plan.

Built on the strong foundations laid by each of our divisions over the years, this new strategy leverages our global scale and positions us at the forefront of meaningful change. By bringing together our achievements, the strategy gives Flutter brands better access to the insight, skills, and capabilities of the global Flutter Group to create the biggest impact.

Our Positive Impact Plan identifies three core areas of focus, with a fourth pillar focused on Environmental Impact.

Helping customers to Play Well

• Extending our leadership in safer gambling, our Play Well strategy aims to provide customers with a positive, entertaining, and safe experience at all times.
• As a leading online global operator, we know there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution. Instead, we believe there are universal principles we can employ across our divisions to help our players Play Well.
  • By 2030, we aim to have 75% of our active online customers globally using one or more of our Play Well tools, with over 50% using one or more tools by the end of 2026.
• During 2021 we invested over £45 million to support and promote safe play.
  In the UK, across all our brands, we introduced new measures such as a £10 staking limit trial and introduced a ban on credit card deposits in Ireland.
  We also set safer gambling targets linked to bonus by division for all colleagues, implemented from 2022.
• Earlier this year, we successfully introduced a £500 per month net deposit limit for all customers under the age of 25 years in the UK and Ireland.
• In 2022, Flutter’s Sky Betting & Gaming, Paddy Power and Betfair, were awarded the Advanced Safer Gambling Standard by GamCare for their progressive approach and continuous focus toward safer gambling.

Empowering colleagues to Work Better

• We want to create dynamic, inclusive, and equitable workplaces for our colleagues. In 2021, we launched our first global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (“DE&I”) strategy and announced the first goals in 2022.
  • Our equity goal is that by the end of 2023, all our divisions will be measuring and reporting on pay performance, progression, and retention across different diversity demographics.
  • For inclusion, we’ll measure the difference in colleague engagement across different diversity demographics by the end of 2022.
  • By 2026 we want to have 40% of women in top leadership roles, and by 2030 aim to build a business that is more reflective of the communities we work in and the world around us.
• In September 2022, Flutter launched its Global Advocacy Programme, an initiative led by members of its Executive Committee, to champion different diversity groups and amplify their voices on a global scale, driving forward the Group’s DE&I strategy.

Working with communities to Do More

• We’re building on our long history of community support. We invested £3.7 million in community initiatives in 2021 and our goal is to improve the lives of 10 million people by the end of 2030.
• In 2021, we announced our commitment to donate the full £4.79 million of business rates to charity, including our grassroots fund, Cash4Clubs, for the #ClubsInCrisis campaign. In total, £4 million was granted to over 1,600 community clubs, supporting over 230,000 young people.
• Our community investment is global. This year we provided emergency relief support to CARE International to help the aid efforts in Ukraine. We contributed over £400k, taking our donations since we first partnered with CARE in 2013 to over £2.5m.
• We continue our long-term support of the charity Right To Play. We focused our support on their ‘Save Her Seat’ campaign, which aims to get 50,000 girls back into education post-Covid and have contributed over $50,000, saving over 1300 seats for girls in school.

We know these goals are ambitious, and we know we’ve got more to do, but we believe it’s only by stretching ourselves as a business that can we make a real difference to those around us.

More information:

• Read more about Flutter’s sustainability efforts

* This article features in EGBA’s recently published annual Sustainability Report 2021/22.