The UK Gambling Commission has stated that a gambling business must pay a £240,000 ($324,122) penalty following a regulatory finding.
Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited, which runs betfred.com and oddsking.com, operated a selection of online slot games which failed to meet the requirements of the Remote Technical Standards, which are industry standards.
According to the regulator, the failings include hosting games which failed to display the consumer’s net position and games which celebrated losses as wins.
In the industry standards, it explains how all gaming sessions must clearly display a customer’s net position and that a gambling system mustn’t celebrate a return which is less than or equal to the total stake gambled.
The latter is due to the Commission having concerns about the fairness of celebratory effects when a customer was in an overall losing position, suggesting that this could negatively impact a player’s ability to interpret their gameplay accurately.
Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited took immediate action and decommissioned the impacted games
After the findings were discovered, the licensee is said to have taken immediate action and had promptly decommissioned all affected games.
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, said: “Features that impair a consumer’s ability to make informed decisions are not appropriate and pose a clear risk.
“While we acknowledge the operator acted swiftly to remove the affected games, this enforcement action should serve as a clear signal to the wider industry to review and strengthen their compliance practices — and to ensure that gameplay is fair and consumers are not exposed to unnecessary risk.”
The company, Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited, has faced regulatory action from the UK Gambling Commission in the past, in 2022. At that time, they were given a major £2.87 million penalty for what was described as ‘social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.’ The operator also received an official warning for these failures.
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