Betfred Will Pay The Gambling Commission £3.25 Million For Regulatory Lapses.

To make amends for regulatory shortcomings, Done Bros (Cash Betting) Limited, doing business as Betfred, will pay £3.25 million ($4.3 million). Following a Commission inquiry that exposed social responsibility and anti-money laundering shortcomings, the fine was imposed.

The lack of adequate controls to protect new customers and to keep track of high-velocity spending and playtime are among the social responsibility failings Betfred has been found guilty of, putting the customer at risk of significant losses in the absence of safer gambling interactions.

It was discovered that Betfred had taken the assumption that since its customers were winning gamblers, they were not at risk of harm.

Additionally, it did not conduct any safer gambling interactions with one customer who bet £517,499 over two months, and it failed to keep adequate records, limiting future interactions' effectiveness.

Regulation failures related to anti-money laundering failures included poor record keeping and financial alert thresholds that were set too high; failure to consistently obtain appropriate "know your customer" identification and Source of Funds (SoF) documentation from customers when its thresholds were met; placing excessive reliance on open-source information; and failing to take additional steps to corroborate customers' SoF information.

Between January 2021 and December 2022, several errors happened at various points in time.

The Gambling Commission's Executive Director of Operations, Kay Roberts, stated: 

"In recent years, there's been a public focus on online gambling, but this case illustrates how important it is for us to continue our drive to raise standards across the whole industry.

"Gambling is a legitimate leisure activity enjoyed safely by millions, but it is vital that every single operator, either online or offline, has in place effective safeguards to prevent harm or crime."