The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has imposed a fine of £3.3m ($4.3m) on sports betting operator Betfred for failures in social responsibility and anti-money laundering. This is not the first time Betfred has been penalised for similar issues in the UK; the company had to pay a fine of £2.9m ($3.8m) in 2022.
Lack of safeguards to safeguard the interests of new customers is inadequate.
This time around, Done Bros, the company trading as Betfred in the UK market, has a long list of errors. The list, published on the UKGC website on Tuesday, includes having insufficient controls to protect new customers and making assumptions that customers were not at risk of harm because they were winning.
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has identified an incident in which Betfred did not take the necessary measures to ensure safe gambling when dealing with a gambler who wagered a total of £517,499 ($676,860) within a two-month period.
Betfred, a UK-based operator with 1,750 betting shops, committed various anti-money laundering failures. These included not keeping proper records, setting financial alerts too high, and relying too heavily on open-source information.
Roberts, the Executive Director of Operations for the UKGC, highlighted the failings that took place between January 2021 and December 2022 and noted that this case emphasizes the necessity for the industry to persist in its efforts to increase its standards.