Four brands under the Flutter gambling arm will need to pay £2 million in fines after social responsibility failures were exposed.
The UK Gambling Commission has handed down a £2 million fine to four remote operators trading under Paddy Power and Betfair, owned by Flutter, as part of a settlement after an investigation exposed social responsibility failures relating to customer interaction. Those operators are PPB Entertainment Limited, PPB Counterparty Services Limited, Betfair Casino Limited, and TSE Malta LP.
Specifically, the Commission found that the operator’s systems were not sensitive enough to identify early indicators of harm. One example given is a customer depositing £12,000 across a 15-day period, another £25,000 in 25 days, and another a massive £86,00 across 16 days before any of them were interacted with.
Other red flags included intense activity spikes, with sessions just shy of eight hours where 300 bets amounting to £20,000 didn’t trigger any communication from the operators. Behavior like this should be picked up by operators as potential indicators for gambling-related harm, according to the Commission.
“This £2 million settlement reflects the seriousness of the failings identified and the importance of meeting social responsibility and customer interaction standards,” said John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement at the Commission. “Our compliance assessment in 2024 uncovered examples where interactions fell far short of what is required.
“These failings should never have occurred. While the licensees co-operated fully with the investigation, accepted the failings early, and implemented an action plan quickly, this immediate response is the minimum we expect from operators when serious shortcomings are identified.
“Operators must ensure systems to identify and address harm work effectively and at the right time. Over-reliance on automation and failure to intervene when clear harm indicators are present exposes consumers to unnecessary risk. Where we find failings, we will act decisively to protect players.”
This is the second time that Paddy Power Betfair has faced regulatory action for social responsibility failures, with the operator slapped with a £490,000 fine back in 2023 for marketing to vulnerable consumers.
“Flutter takes its safer gambling responsibilities incredibly seriously and we firmly believe that we lead the industry in player protection,” said a spokesperson for Flutter’s UK and Ireland arm. “Customer safety is our number one priority and there is no suggestion that any of the customers reviewed by the Gambling Commission experienced any harm.
“Our controls have evolved significantly and we recently introduced a next-generation customer safety platform, with the vast majority of checks now happening in real-time. As such, we are confident that the issues highlighted by the commission in its public statement would not be repeated today.”
Featured image: Wikimedia Commons – Wikimedia.org, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
