Sisal’s 11th Sustainability Report for 2019 has been published, documenting the previous year’s Corporate Social Responsibility activities, part of a large change process for the company, initiated with the internationalisation strategy and at the end of 2019 with the demerger separating the payments business (SisalPay) from the gaming business, which is analysed in the new Sustainability Report.

In 2019, the gaming business alone recorded financial results of € 9.8 billion in revenues, (+11% vs 2018) € 7.8 billion of winnings distributed to customers, contributing significant tax revenues of €1.2 billion.
Thanks to the experience we have consolidated during the 75 years of our history, Sisal accomplished numerous achievements over the course of 2019, for example the successful bidding for the renewal of the SuperEnalotto licence, reaching a leadership position in the Italian online gaming market and our international expansion that has introduced the company in Morocco, Spain and Turkey.

As well as offering the best gaming experience, Sisal has long been committed to social responsibility: our constant focus on responsible gaming and the protection of minors have enabled us to be awarded international certifications from associations with the highest obtainable standards: European Lotteries and World Lotteries Association.

Sisal was one of the first companies in the sector to introduce reporting on sustainability: since 2014 every Annual Report has adopted the guidelines set out by the Global Reporting Initiative and since 2018 each report has satisfied the highest standards of transparency towards all stakeholders.

Social responsibility continues to be the foundation of our strategic decision-making processes, focusing on people, communities and consumers, whose voices we listen to actively and attentively. The centrality and importance that we attribute to people is also reflected in our commitment to the welfare and safety of all our employees and developing their skills and talents, which constitute absolute priorities for the company.

One example of the sustainability projects we conducted for communities in 2019 is Will, in collaboration with the charity MilanoAltruista, that gave all Sisal staff the opportunity to volunteer four working hours per month in charitable projects, for which Sisal still pays their salary. Another project is GoBeyond, the call for ideas that has now reached its fourth edition, embodying two ambitious missions: generating value for communities by contributing to the technological development of the country and supporting the digital transformation through high-potential ideas, helping them evolve into high-value entrepreneurial projects.

For any company working in the gaming sector, protecting and respecting consumers is essential. For 10 years, Sisal has developed its own responsible gaming programme voluntarily, which is founded on educating consumers about balanced and informed gaming behaviours, protecting players and helping problem gamblers with a free online helpline service provided by FeDerSerD, who Sisal has collaborated with for a long time.

Sisal’s CEO, Francesco Durante, upon publishing the 2019 Sustainability Report, stressed how “overcoming the challenge of sustainability can only be achieved by overcoming the challenge of consumer protection. In light of this, we have decided to innovate, moving from a compliance-based approach to an approach based on a concrete commitment to responsible gaming. We aim to use data from several platforms, combined with artificial intelligence, to predict potentially problematic behaviour and offer personalised protection mechanisms to all players.”