In search for the most sustainable UK casinos

This article reports about our work and findings over the last 12 months. It’s a long one, short over 5000 words. Hope you enjoy reading and find it insightful. If you do, please share and comment, it would help us a lot on our mission!

Better World Casino (BWC) is on a mission to guide fans of gambling entertainment to the most sustainable and ethical gambling brands. 

We do this because players can have a big impact by choosing certain brands over others. Let us explain:

There is not much difference between the brands when it comes to user experience. Most casinos offer the same games from the same providers, with the same payment methods and payout speed. As a player you basically get the same value for money because the differences in bonus offers and RTP is so small that most players will hardly notice a difference. 

But there is a significant difference between online gambling companies when it comes to sustainable and ethical practices. 

Some companies do their best to cause as little harm as possible to players, society and the environment as their mission is to provide the best entertainment in an ethical and sustainable manner. 

But there are also those who don’t care about any of this and their mission is merely to make as much profit as possible, often at the expense of the wellbeing of the consumer (e.g. no regards for responsible gambling) and at a cost for society (e.g. tax avoiding, environmental footprint, inequality). 

We believe the latter is very unethical and the world would be better off without companies that operate in such a way. If players would just stay away from those companies, they would soon be out of business. 

The problem is that the player doesn’t have access to the necessary information presented in a way that is easy to understand and convincing. Information to distinguish between the good and the bad companies simply isn’t readily available. This is the problem that Better World Casinos aims to solve. 

There are plenty of websites where the consumer can find information about the online casinos and bookmakers available in their country that (pretend) to rate them on user experience, customer service, products offered, payout speed etc, while in fact the brand on top is there because it pays the most. Besides lack of honest and transparent ranking, no one reviews the companies behind the brands on their social and environmental impact, or their business ethics and company culture. 

So at Better World Casinos we do both! 

How to determine who is most sustainable and ethical: our research journey

There are a lot of online gambling brands. In the UK alone there are 559 active remote casino, betting and bingo licences (UKGC). Not being able to rank them all at once, we started with making a selection of the highest ranked online casinos and sportsbook brands on the most popular casino review sites in the UK. Accordingly we listed which companies operate those brands, made a shortlist and ended up with 21 companies that operate the top 50 brands that we encountered.  

Now that we had a list, we could start the research with the goal to rank them based on their ESG performance. 

ESG stands for Environment, Social and Governance, and it is a framework that can be used to measure and assess the impact an organisation has on the environment. You can learn more by reading our post about ESG in the gambling industry, but in short, the environmental aspect is concerned with topics like energy use, emissions, waste, etc. The socia’ aspect relates to consumer, employees, and other stakeholders and society at large. And lastly governance is about a company’s values and how it is managed (‘governed’). This determines how a company operates. Basically G is where decisions that impact the E and the S. 

Assessing ESG performance is complex and a lot of work. As it is a fairly new concept, there is no industry standard yet on reporting and to quantify the data which would enable a fair comparison between companies and set a baseline. This is something that BWC is developing together with other industry stakeholders and will take time. 

During our research we quickly realised that this is too big a task to start with. We simply did not have the resources nor the knowledge to pull this off. Therefore we decided to start with answering four simple questions:

• How transparent is the company?
• What are the ESG plans and do they report on any ESG performance?
• Does the company have any compliance issues? Or had in the past?
• What data is available from 3rd parties and what does it say about the company?

Defining parameters, finding the data and accordingly ranking the company based on our findings felt a lot more manageable. The below table describes our approach. 

Question	Explanation	Parameters	Score
How transparent is the company?	A company that has good intentions won’t hide in the shadows and will openly communicate who the owners are, where they are based and how they operate  because they should have nothing to hide. Transparency is essential in being able to be held accountable.	Info about:Owners & shareholdersWhere they are basedInformation on company activities and performance.	0 = no public data on company, nor owners, nor performance 1 = some information about owners is available, but hardly anything more2 = owners are known and company website gives some info about the company3 = annual report, NO ESG report, 4 = annual report & ESG report, NO reporting standard5 = annual report, ESG report and GRI standard
What are the ESG plans and do they report on any ESG performance?	A minimum requirement is that a company at least makes a statement about their values, responsible gambling, human rights, employee wellbeing, social and environmental impact.	Info about:Responsible gamblingEnvironmental impactEmployee wellbeingDEICommunity workValues Other ESG topics	0 = no mention of any ESG topic, sustainability or ethics1 = some info but no plan2 = vague info, no plan3 = some info or plan without clear goals4 = plan to net zero or carbon neutrality5 = detailed science-based targets (SBTi) with clear goals, UNSDG defined, roadmap.
Has the company had any compliance issues?	If a company has been sanctioned for breach of laws regarding AML, KYC, player protection or marketing then that’s an indication that they either don’t have their business in order, or they are purposefully balancing on the edge of compliance for financial gains.	Penalties received for:Player protectionAMLKIYMarketingOther compliance issues	0 = multiple offences / breaches on multiple categories multiple years in a row including the last year1 = multiple offences in last year2 = only 1 offence in last year3 = no sanction in last year4 = no sanctions in last 2 years5 = no sanctions in last 3 years
What data is available from 3rd parties and what does it say about the company?	We look at scores and ratings that we can find from other organisations and industry bodies to determine the reputation among employees, peers, media outlets, data aggregators, etc.	GlassdoorCSRhub scoreAwards Other	0 = negative ratings, 0 awards1 = neutral ratings, 0 awards2 = neutral rating and some awards 3 = positive public rating or awards4 = positive rating and some awards 5 = top highest scores on Glassdoor, Indeed, CSRhub, multiple awards

With these 4 questions in mind we set out to review 21 gambling operators with the goal to better understand the ESG situation in the industry and define a benchmark. Eventually we want to determine if a company meets our minimum standards for ethical and sustainable practice. 

We extensively studied any information that we could find about the companies by looking at their websites, annual reports, media publications, regulatory notices, award nominations and prizes, and more and we’ve built a dossier on each company. 

What We Found Out

We started our research in September 2023 and since then we have gathered a lot of information and learned a lot about the industry, ESG, surveying, data collection and the process of rating and ranking companies. First conclusion, or more of a confirmation of what we already thought: it’s A LOT of work and it’s not easy. 

Reporting on all our findings in this post would simply make it too long (it is already quite long) so we limit it to the most insightful findings. For more details you can go to the operator reviews. We are trying to regularly update them and improve on our research and reporting method.  

An important thing that became evident is that gambling industry is constantly evolving. Over the past few years, several significant mergers and acquisitions have reshaped the landscape. For instance, Bally’s acquired Gamesys in 2021. Aspire Global, which was a public company until July 2022, was bought by Neogames and now Neogames is currently in the process of being acquired by Aristocrat. Leo Vegas was acquired by MGM Resorts International in 2022, with MGM Resorts International being 50% owned by Entain. Additionally, we discovered that Dazzletag is part of the Begame Group. Meanwhile, Tonybet exited the UK market, which led us to exclude them from our list and 888 Holding rebranded to Evoke. 

Consequently, while we started with 21 shortlisted operators, our final list for our research came down to 19 companies, with Bally’s and Gamesys now considered a single entity and Tonybet off the list since it’s no longer operating in the UK.

Learning more about the iGaming landscape made us realise that we need to think better about which companies we want to review and what has most value for the player.

Now let’s look at those four questions that we had set out to answer.

Transparency

How transparent is the company? A company that has good intentions won’t hide in the shadows and will openly communicate who the owners are, where they are based and how they operate because they should have nothing to hide. Transparency is essential in being able to be held accountable. 

Scoring: 

• 0 = no public data on company, nor owners, nor performance 
• 1 = some information about owners is available, but hardly anything more
• 2 = owners are known and company website gives some info about the company
• 3 = We have access to an annual report, but no ESG report, 
• 4 = Company published annual report & ESG report but doesn’t use a reporting standard
• 5 = We have the annual report and ESG report and it is according to the GRI standard

From our research, we found that the amount of information available per company varies significantly. The public ones are easy, they provide so much info that it takes days if not weeks to go through it all. But for the private companies it’s a different story. There are even some companies that we are not even sure about where they are based and who runs them. This surprised us for companies that have a UKGC licence. Dazzletag, owned by Begame Group scored 1 point, and Netbet, owned by Cosmo Gaming scored 0 points.

The top scoring companies on the topic of transparency are the public ones. They provide extensive information on financial and ESG performance. Out of the 19 companies we reviewed, 10 report on ESG, with six adhering to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. Notably, all the companies using the GRI standard are publicly traded. 

This variance in reporting standards presents a challenge in assessing the true commitment and effectiveness of these ESG initiatives. The companies that stand out for their transparency—each earning the highest score of 5—are:

• Rank Group
• Kindred
• Betsson
• Aspire
• Flutter

The criteria for getting 5 points were: available annual report, dedicated ESG report according to GRI standard. 

While it’s encouraging to see these companies making strides in ESG reporting, it’s essential to approach their promises and targets with a healthy dose of scepticism. Our goal at Better World Casinos is to establish rigorous due diligence processes to verify any claims. We need to ensure that they are not merely making empty promises or instances of greenwashing designed to enhance public perception.

ESG

Scoring:

• 0 = no mention of any ESG topic, sustainability or ethics
• 1 = some info but no plan
• 2 = vague info, no plan
• 3 = some info or plan without clear goals
• 4 = plan to net zero or carbon neutrality
• 5 = detailed science-based targets (SBTi) with clear goals, UN SDG defined and a roadmap.

We are aware that the question is very broad, but we purposefully did that because there are significant differences in what companies report on ESG topics and there are also many different topics that fit under the ESG umbrella. (see also our article about materiality assessment by iGaming stakeholders). With our initial research and ranking we aimed to take an explorative approach and learn from our experience and improve upon our methods. 

What we are aiming to define are minimum standards for a company and define a baseline of what we deem sufficient (for the time being) as we work on further developing our framework.  We also try to anticipate what the standards are going to be, based on regulations and developments such as the CSRD and the MGA ESG Code.

There are many data points that can be defined. For our current version we grouped them into the following topics

• Responsible gambling
• Environmental impact
• Social impact (Employee wellbeing, DEI and Community work)
• Governance. 

We thought it good to discuss responsible gambling separately and not as part of the social pillar as it’s one of the most material topics and first on everybody’s mind when talking about ESG in the context of online gambling. 

Responsible Gambling

As could be expected, every company makes a statement about responsible gambling and their intentions. However, very few back this up with data on their performance. Especially the private ones

The most ambitious is Kindred with their Road towards Zero program to reduce revenue from problem gambling to (near) zero. No other company has set such a clear goal when it comes to safer gambling. 

It is definitely the most challenging topic as it requires balancing profit goals, and on the other hand player protection and preventing harmful play. 

There is a lot happening with regards to responsible gambling and for the scope of this article, we are not going further into it. 

Environmental impact

When it comes to environmental impact, there’s a notable variation in the approaches and commitments of UK casino operators. Those companies who report on ESG all mention reducing their environmental footprint. Much of these efforts revolve around carbon offsetting rather than direct action to reduce their emissions. Some companies are making more ambitious commitments and are setting more concrete targets than others.

From our initial findings, Aspire, Flutter, and Evoke seem to have set the most ambitious goals, aiming to achieve net-zero emissions by 2035. Kindred aims to reduce its absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 90% and Scope 3 emissions by 35% by the end of 2027, in alignment with their Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) commitment.

Scope 3 emissions, which encompass all indirect emissions in a company’s value chain, present the most significant challenge. The challenge is particularly pertinent for us as evaluators, as making a fair comparison between companies with both online and land-based operations versus those that are purely online, adds complexity. Nevertheless, addressing Scope 3 emissions is crucial for a comprehensive environmental strategy.

Some operators are making strides in improving their supply chains. By encouraging suppliers to adopt more progressive ESG strategies, these companies not only reduce their own environmental impact but also promote broader industry change.

Social impact

Besides looking at responsible gambling which we already discussed above, we also looked at other social aspects such as employee wellbeing, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and community work to assess the social impact of casino operators.

Employee wellbeing is a significant focus for many companies, driven by the competitive nature of the talent market. Companies offer attractive remuneration packages with perks to attract and retain employees. However, high employee turnover indicates there is no loyalty. Company culture plays a crucial role besides just salary.

Companies also increasingly focus on DEI initiatives to create more inclusive and equitable workplaces. This includes policies and programs aimed at increasing diversity in hiring, providing equitable opportunities for advancement, and fostering an inclusive work environment. However progressive the industry tries to be in this aspect, none of the companies have a perfectly balanced labour force or equal pay policy. 

Many operators engage in community work as part of their social responsibility efforts. This includes charitable donations, sponsorships, and community service initiatives. Such activities not only benefit the community but also enhance the company’s reputation and employee morale.

One example is activities like beach cleanups, which are excellent for employee morale and public relations. Such initiatives foster a sense of community and responsibility among employees and contribute positively to the company’s public image.

Our findings show that most of the casino operators are taking various seemingly meaningful steps in social responsibility but what they do exactly is hard to measure and compare. There is also the significant risk that these initiatives are given more weight than they deserve with the risk of greenwashing. Therefore we haven’t identified a specific company that stands out in this aspect. It has proven difficult to compare and rank this as we need to develop metrics that allow for rating and ranking social responsibility efforts. 

Governance

In the realm of governance, many casino operators use a lot of pretty words to describe their missions and values. However, to truly understand their commitment to ethical practices, we will need to delve deep into their operations and finances. Especially when it comes to 

• Tax Practices: Evaluating where and how much taxes are paid is crucial. It gives insight into whether companies are contributing fairly to the economies they operate in.
• Pay Ratios and remuneration: Investigating the disparity between the highest and lowest-paid employees and the compensation packages helps us understand if profits are shared fairly within the organisation.
• Profit Distribution: We also need to look at how much profit is directed towards top-level executives and shareholders versus being reinvested into the company or given to charitable causes.

The extent to which companies are willing to make concessions on their bottom line to reduce their negative environmental impact, and support charitable and philanthropic efforts is another critical area. While many operators speak extensively about their charitable activities, the actual financial commitment to these causes often tells a different story.

A company that stood out from our research is bet365. They deserve special mention for its significant contribution to the UK economy as the largest taxpayer among the gambling operators. Bet365 does not seem to engage in any tax avoidance strategies, opting instead to contribute substantial tax revenues, particularly benefiting the local community in Stoke-on-Trent. Furthermore, they also donate a 100 million GBP annually to the Denise Coates Foundation. But all might not be as it seems and more research is needed. For example it’s unclear what is actually being done as the fund as their long term investment has grown to over 634 million GBP while not much is going out. Could it be that donating large amounts is mainly motivated by tax deductions? Also, the CEO of bet365 Denise Coates gave herself a hefty salary of £221 million. For more detailed information on Bet365’s ESG performance, you can refer to our review.

We don’t mean to pick on Bet365, we just try to illustrate that It takes careful consideration of all the facts before coming up with a verdict on ethical and sustainable governance. 

Compliance

Has the company had any compliance issues? If a company has been sanctioned for breach of laws regarding AML, KYC, player protection or marketing then that’s an indication that they either don’t have their business in order, or they are purposefully balancing on the edge of compliance for financial gains. 

Scoring: 

• 0 = multiple offences / breaches on multiple categories multiple years in a row including the last year
• 1 = multiple offences in last year
• 2 = only 1 offence in last year
• 3 = no sanction in last year
• 4 = no sanctions in last 2 years
• 5 = no sanctions in last 3 years

Compliance is a critical area for evaluating the ethical standards of casino operators. Our research revealed a wide range of compliance issues among the companies reviewed, including breaches related to Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, player protection, and marketing practices.

None of the reviewed companies is free of compliance issues. Rank group received the most points when it comes to compliance. Their last recorded compliance issues date back to 2019 concerning AML, and 2018 concerning player protection. 

All companies have faced sanctions for non-compliance with laws designed to protect players, ensure fair play and/or prevent AML or data protection. These breaches indicate potential weaknesses in their internal controls and a possible tendency to prioritise profits over regulatory adherence. It seems that companies more often than not operate on the edge of regulations, calculating that potential profits outweigh the costs of fines. Trying to stick to the law is not that same as acting in the spirit of the law. We feel it’s important not to only consider what is done but also why it is done. 

3rd parties 

What data is available from 3rd parties and what does it say about the company? We look at scores and ratings that we can find from other organisations and industry bodies to determine the reputation among employees, peers, media outlets, data aggregators, etc. 

Scoring 

• 0 = negative ratings, 0 awards
• 1 = neutral ratings, 0 awards
• 2 = neutral rating and some awards 
• 3 = positive public rating or awards
• 4 = positive rating and some awards 
• 5 = top highest scores on Glassdoor, Indeed, CSRhub, multiple awards

Evaluating third-party perspectives provides an additional layer of insight into the performance and reputation of casino operators. We initially looked at three types of sources of data: 

• employee reviews on Glassdoor
• industry awards
• CSRHub score when available. 

Glassdoor

While platforms like Glassdoor could offer valuable insights into company culture and employee satisfaction, we concluded that the data can be skewed. Reviews often reflect extreme opinions, either very positive or very negative, and may not represent the overall employee experience accurately. Also there is a significant difference between companies on how many reviews they have. Those who have more than 100 reviews we consider statistically interesting, but those with much less we consider not relevant enough to take into consideration. There could be different reasons why a company has few reviews. Either it’s a small company, or it could be that the culture doesn’t align with leaving reviews, or other reasons. 

In the below image you can see how the companies score based on their Glassdoor data. 

Industry awards

We initially thought that looking at industry awards would be a good indicator and result in quantifiable data that could help. Recognition from industry bodies can highlight a company’s achievements and reputation. Awards for responsible gambling practices, customer service, and innovation are indicators of a company’s commitment to excellence and ethical practices. Maybe not by itself but at least in comparison with other companies in the same market in which the award was given. 

But the more we read about it, the more we realised how many industry events and awards there are. We couldn’t help but get the feeling that maybe all the awards ceremonies are more an excuse to celebrate and network rather than sincere and genuine efforts to reward performance. With all the sponsors and voting on nominees and no real transparency about how the winners are picked, we decided to only mention them in our reviews, but not give them any value, nor consider it for our rating for the time being until we have had a chance to research it more in depth. 

CSRHub

During our research we came across several organisations that also rate and rank companies on their ESG performance. One of those companies is CSRHub. They aggregate and analyse information from a wide range of sources to evaluate companies on their sustainability practices, ethical behaviour, and social impact. By offering transparent and accessible ratings, CSRHub helps investors, businesses, and consumers make informed decisions that align with their values and promote responsible corporate practices. Basically they do what we aim to do but have been doing it since 2007 and hence have a lot more experience and data. 

We realised that we share the same goal namely to enhance corporate accountability and foster sustainability. They have been B corp certified since 2010 which also aligns with our values hence we decided to reach out. After having spoken to one of the founders and having a look at their database we learned that they had 14 out of the 21 companies in their database. We agreed on a deal that allows us to show their overall ratings over the years 2021 to 2023. You can see the score in the image below. 

The scores in the image are the overall scores. These are made up of four sub scores namely: community rating, employees rating, environment rating and governance rating. These sub-scores closely relate to our own initial methodology which our operators review, namely environmental, social internal (employees), social external (players and society) and governance. 

From the data from CSRhub it was nice to see that most companies are improving as they scored better in 2023 than the previous years.

This concludes the main findings. Now let’s look at how we can interpret this data and rank the iGaming companies. 

Key takeaways

In the above picture you see an overview of the 19 casino operators that we have investigated and the scores that we have given them for the 4 different topics, as well as the score from CSRHub. 

We can see a clear divide between public and privately owned companies. This is mainly due to the fact that public companies have reporting obligations which significantly improves their transparency score. 

How we came to each exact score can be read on in each company’s respective review page. Most importantly we want to point out that we decided to have the CSRHub score weigh the most in our final score. We trust that CSRHub’s score is much more sophisticated than ours as they have much more experience and data.

That said, it’s not the ranking which is of most importance. It’s that we can see a clear divide between companies and their transparency. If a company is not transparent they can’t be held accountable, hence we decided to weigh it as second most important after the CSRhub score.

In the next and final section of this article we will look at which conclusions we can draw from our findings and what we aim to do next. 

Conclusion and what’s next

The journey of assessing ESG performance in the iGaming industry has been both educational and challenging. Over the past year, we have learned that transparency is not just a virtue but a necessity. Without it, companies cannot be held accountable for their actions or promises. As we embarked on this mission, it quickly became evident that the original scope of our research was too broad. We had to narrow our focus, defining clear and manageable parameters to make our findings both reliable and actionable.

We developed specific criteria to assess each company’s performance, focusing on transparency, ESG efforts, compliance, and third-party data. Transparency emerged as the most critical factor; if a company is unwilling to openly share its operations, performance, and goals, it raises serious concerns about their commitment to ethical practices. Our evaluation of ESG performance, though still in its infancy, highlighted the need for more in-depth research and defined parameters to ensure fair judgement. Compliance proved to be a complex area, where our lack of expertise and insufficient investigation means we must tread carefully. Third-party data, while useful, also revealed its limitations—sources like Glassdoor and industry awards may not be as reliable as initially thought. For now, we will give significant weight to CSRHub data, where available.

Based on our findings and what we learned we have defined a minimum standard for companies that we are willing to promote. Eight companies did not meet these minimum criteria for transparency, ESG performance, and compliance. These companies first need to make substantial improvements if they wish to be considered for promotion on our platform. On the other hand, the companies we have chosen to promote have provided enough transparency and data, allowing us to hold them accountable for their actions and allow for further analysis in which we have to go more in depth. 

Our work has only just begun. Reviewing ESG performance in the iGaming industry is a daunting task that requires more resources and expertise than we currently possess. However, the timing is right. There is a growing recognition within the industry of the importance of balancing profitability with sustainability and ethical business practices. As we continue to refine our methods, our aim is to raise the standards even higher. We will continue to spot greenwashing, ask the tough questions, and push for greater accountability.

Looking ahead, we have identified ways how we can improve our research and reporting of our findings. First of all, instead of reporting our findings in detail on our website, we will move detailed findings into PDF reports, highlighting only the most critical points on our website. With the help of future partners who are experts in auditing, reporting and reviewing ESG performance, our aim is for our review framework to become more sophisticated. We will make use of progress bars and defined scoring systems to clearly show how companies measure up and what they need to improve. We are also working on developing benchmarks and a roadmap to guide future assessments.

In the future, we will assess key metrics such as profit allocation to responsible gambling initiatives, clear responsible gambling targets, tax contributions, environmental spending, social investments, pay ratios, and Scope 3 emissions. We will also look at how companies engage with their supply chains to encourage progressive ESG strategies.

The current assessment is just a starting point, and we recognize that there is much more work to be done. Our commitment to transparency, integrity, and thorough verification remains unwavering. As we continue to gather data and refine our frameworks, our goal is to set industry standards that hold operators accountable and encourage continuous improvement. By shining a light on both exemplary practices and areas needing improvement, we hope to drive positive change across the gambling industry.

In conclusion, while many companies articulate strong governance principles, there is still a significant gap between words and actions. Moving forward, we will maintain a healthy scepticism while remaining optimistic about the potential for genuine progress. 

Our mission at Better World Casinos is clear: to pave the way for a more sustainable and ethical gambling industry, and we are just getting started.

Inspired? Want to help us on our mission? We are looking for funding and people to join our team

To learn the full story of BWC, read: Make the world better while you play > About us and the goal > How we rate > Casino Reviews > Join us > more in our Blog