Gambling - Betfred agree settlement with Gambling Commission

Following Paddy Power’s settlement with the Commission in February the Gambling Commission has reported that Betfed (Petfre (Gibraltar) Ltd t/a Betfred.com) have become the latest high street name to admit failings in its operations.

“The Gambling Commission’s investigation follows a court case that resulted in a Betfred customer being jailed for three years and four months after admitting to stealing from his employer. A significant proportion of the stolen money was spent with Betfred.”

The individual was an online customer with Betfred between 2013 and 2015. Betfred confirmed that the customer was considered to be a VIP player and would have been in its top 5% of customers in terms of spend and profit. Following an investigation, the Commission found that Betfred had failed to meet its anti-money laundering and social responsibility obligations in a number of key areas, resulting in licence condition breaches. These breaches were not just in relation to the individual identified, but also more widely. This demonstrated weaknesses in Betfred’s approach to anti-money laundering and social responsibility. Betfred’s failings are explored in more detail below.

The full public statement, which forms part of the voluntary settlement entered into between the Commission and Betfed can be found here.  It details the terms of the settlement and the failings identified during the review. 

The settlement consists of the following elements:

• Betfred agrees to make payment of £787,500, with £443,000 to be paid to the victims of criminal activities and the remainder, which constitutes a sum in lieu of a financial penalty that might otherwise have been imposed by the Commission, to be spent on socially responsible causes as agreed with the Commission.
• Betfred will pay the Commission's costs of the investigation, amounting to £30,240
• Betfred will arrange for an independent third party review and audit of its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies and procedures to include customer due diligence, enhanced due diligence and on-going monitoring practices
• Betfred will review and update its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies and procedures to reflect the findings of the Commission and will incorporate into them any further recommendations made by the independent third party following its review and audit
• Betfred agrees to the Commission making this public statement reflecting the findings and outcomes of the investigation in order to draw the issues to the attention of the wider industry and provide an opportunity for others to improve.

Richard Watson, Programme Director at the Commission, said: “We identified a number of weaknesses in the anti-money laundering and social responsibility controls used by Betfred. The penalty package of over £800,000 reflects these failures. 

“The Commission has now concluded a wide range of cases over the last 10 months leading to around £3.75million in penalty packages. The outcomes and findings in these cases provide a clear signal to operators of the need to learn the lessons from these for social responsibility and money laundering controls, or risk facing tougher sanctions.”