Broken down, Entain received the Advanced Level 3 Standard for its online activities – and is to date, the largest operator to have done so – while its land-based activities were awarded Advanced Level 2.

To achieve these standards, Entain was assessed in 10 different areas and against up to 58 separate criteria.

This included a review of the group’s safer gambling strategy, policies, procedures and controls. GamCare also conducted interviews with Entain employees and on-site visits, among other things.

“We are encouraged to see Entain achieve the Advanced level of the Safer Gambling Standard for its online and land-based activities, meaning they have adopted a wide range of safer gambling measures that go beyond the social responsibility provisions of their gambling licence,” remarked Dan Whitlam, Head of Industry Standards at GamCare.

“The Safer Gambling Standard is an independent quality standard, which incorporates the experience of our service users, the huge level of collected evidence and industry research across numerous fields and GamCare’s many years of experience working across the sector.”

This comes after Entain published its 2021 annual and gender pay gap reports in March, highlighting significant contributions to sustainability and, in particular, safer gambling.

More recently, Entain came third in GambleAware’s donor list for 2021/22, behind Flutter and William Hill.

Entain’s Chief Governance Officer, Robert Hoskin, commented: “We are proud to be recognised by GamCare and its Safer Gambling Standard in this critically important area of responsible betting and gaming, and in particular with their highest accreditation.

“Sustainability, and with that – responsibility, is at the heart of our strategy and is fundamental to the way we do business.”