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The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has ordered betting giant William Hill Group to pay a whopping £19.2 million due to their continuous social responsibility and money laundering failures. Owned by 888 Group, the bookmaking brand has been accused of several wrongdoings including customers losing thousands of pounds just minutes after opening an account.
The shocking fine will be distributed among three of the brand’s businesses with williamhill.com ordered to pay £12.5 million, mrgreen.com, run by the MrGreen brand, to pay £3.7 million and the William Hill Organization to pay £3 million. It is also recognized as the largest-ever penalty to be awarded by the commission, surpassing the previous record of £17 million handed to Entain Group, last year.
Failing Customers
The UKGC considered revoking William Hill’s license following the investigation after it revealed several alarming and widespread transgressions. The betting giant, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across Britain, as well as its sub brands failed their customers and violated AML protocols on several occasions.
On one occasion a customer was able to open an account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes without undergoing any checks. While playing at Mr Green, the company failed to take appropriate action such as identifying the risk of harm or seeking income evidence for at-risk players, who ended up losing £14,902 within 70 minutes and £54,252 in four weeks respectively.
The William Hill Group was also unsuccessful in preventing 331 customers from gambling, despite their self-exclusion from Mr Green. It was also reported that
a player was able to place a suspicious £100,000 bet despite having set a £70,000 credit limit no checks or inquiries were made asking players to prove their source of income.
UKGC Crackdown
William Hill’s fine is just the latest in unprecedented action the UKGC has taken against gambling operators within the last 15 months. The UKGC are in the process of evaluating its current licensing conditions to implement safer gambling policies and procedures, concluding 26 enforcement cases since the beginning of 2022.
The cases have resulted in more than £76 million in fines from incompliant operators, revealing the need to enforce safer gambling procedures and reduce the possibility for any criminal activity to take place by introducing a third-party audit assessment.
Additionally, the regulatory body stated that there was a lack of sufficient measures to safeguard new customers and to adequately take into account increased activity in terms of both money and time spent until it was probably too late. Thus, players would have already been subjected to the liability of significant loss of funds in a considerably short period. To avoid such perils, certain players may be better off registering at casinos offering UK players no deposit bonuses.
Trouble For 888
In 2022, 888 holdings acquired all of William Hill’s non-US assets for £2.2 billion
from Las Vegas-based giant Caesars. The deal has proven to be less fruitful than initially hoped with the London based operator’s revenues taking a hit following the agreement and now dealing with the regulatory mess Caesar’s left behind.
The company has acknowledged that the breaches occurred under the previous ownership and management and have been making strides to rectify those wrongs, implementing a rigorous action plan which the UKGC has acknowledged. However although the failures may not have taken place under 888 ownership, the company will still need to deal with the expected fallout.
Additionally, the company has been experiencing a downward trajectory for the past few months and doesn’t seem to be getting over this slump any time soon. 888 was also recently in hot water for offering its betting products in Austria illegally and is now having to deal with locals seeking refunds. This could lead to the operator losing out on millions of pounds.
On a more positive note, 888 launched Mr Green in Germany after securing a license earlier this year. The operator moved quickly to launch its wide range of gambling services on a locally based regulated basis. This is also the first time the Mr Green brand will be operating on the 888 proprietary technology platform.
