Maarten Haijer: Creating Economic and Social Value Through Sustainable Gambling

29.07.2025

In this article, Maarten Haijer, EGBA’s Secretary General, reflects on the significant socio-economic contributions and safer gambling progress made by EGBA members in 2024, while calling for greater policy support for regulated operators. The article is featured as a foreword in EGBA’s recently published Sustainability Report 2025.

First and foremost, thank you for taking the time to read our 2025 sustainability report. The importance of sustainability to us and our members is reflected in this report, but we can only share our progress if people are willing to take the time to read and consider the report.

In a year marked by both progress and challenges, EGBA members continue to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable business practices. This report – our fifth consecutive annual sustainability report – shows not just where we are, but how far we’ve come – and where we’re heading. We publish this report to support transparency and reinforce our culture of social responsibility. It tracks our yearly progress and demonstrates our accountability to all stakeholders.

The landscape of European gambling is evolving rapidly. As new technologies emerge and player expectations shift, our members have responded with greater innovation and responsibility. This year’s report outlines their progress, presenting new data and initiatives that provide a broad picture of our members’ positive contributions to European society.

For the first time in our sustainability reporting, we’re publishing comprehensive economic contribution data alongside traditional safer gambling and other sustainability metrics. This includes tax contributions and investments in European sports. These figures reveal how our members generate value for society: creating jobs, funding public services, supporting communities, and protecting players.

The report shows considerable progress. This past year, our members achieved record levels of safety tool use among their players, the number of safety messages they sent hit unprecedented volumes, while the increased share of staff trained in safer gambling represents their strongest commitment yet. These achievements demonstrate that social responsibility and long-term business viability go hand in hand.

We’ve also evolved how we measure success. Over recent years, we’ve explored ways to assess the real impact of our members’ safer gambling efforts. This year, we’re pleased to share data showing how personalised messages affect player behaviours – from deposit patterns to betting behaviour. While there’s no single way to measure success, this shift from outputs to outcomes helps answer the crucial question: are their efforts making a real difference for players?

The data increasingly says yes. We can clearly demonstrate that personalised interactions are creating meaningful behavioural change. If one message helps one player avoid riskier behaviour, it’s a success. But what’s encouraging is these protection efforts happen proactively and at scale. By helping players gamble safely and sustainably, our members are protecting both their customers and their own long-term business health.

The progress outlined in this report underscores the importance of maintaining a regulatory framework that supports the regulated market, not hinders it. Our members’ investments in safer gambling, compliance, and social responsibility create genuine value for players and society – benefits that can only be sustained through continued support for regulated operators over black market alternatives. Unfortunately, the growth of the black market and crypto casinos are an increasing concern across Europe.

EGBA’s role has evolved over time. We’re facilitating collaboration and discussion between our members, sharing best practices and what works in safer gambling. Most importantly, we bridge the gap between operator experience and regulatory understanding, bringing evidence with us to stakeholder discussions.

Looking ahead, we’re aiming to bring the industry together once again to promote safer gambling and highlight the latest research and developments during this year’s European Safer Gambling Week (17-23 November). Building on last year’s success, we’re hoping to engage with healthcare professionals, researchers, and those working directly with gambling harm. Planning is underway, and we encourage all stakeholders to join us.

A major milestone involves the work to standardise markers of harm at European level. This EGBA-proposed initiative, being developed by the European Committee for Standardisation, will enable more consistent and earlier detection of risky play across operators and borders. The process to develop the standard is valuable – bringing together stakeholders to share knowledge and experiences to create something for the common good. This is precisely the kind of collaboration that we need more of. We hope that the standard will be finalised early next year.

This report captures the many successes of our members this past year and we congratulate them on raising the bar not only for themselves but the rest of the industry. Each area of progress reflects countless hours of work by dedicated professionals across our membership who understand that safe and sustainable gambling is the foundation of lasting business success.

Yours sincerely,

Maarten Haijer

Secretary General, EGBA