Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited, the company that runs betfred.com, has been ordered to pay £900,000 ($1.2m) after an investigation by the Gambling Commission found multiple social responsibility failures.
The investigation found that Betfred did not have the sufficient processes in place to identify harm indicators such as spend, time or using automated processes.
In addition, Betfred did not have systems in place to ensure that, once these indicators had been detected, action could be taken immediately and automatically to minimise potential player harm.
Finally, Betfred utilised a process which meant that once a customer’s account was flagged for review by the safer gambling team, the account could not be flagged again for at least seven days.
This meant that if behaviour escalated in severity, the case could not be reflagged to reflect the risk of greater harm.
One customer lost £17,900 within 24 hours because of this process.
John Pierce, Commission Director of Enforcement, said: “Diligent implementation of effective policies and procedures are the cornerstones of safer gambling in Britain.
“The Commission found that Petfre didn't have sufficiently effective procedures in place, meaning some customers displaying markers of harm were not contacted quickly enough.
“While the gaps we identified were unacceptable, the licensee acted swiftly to implement interim mitigating controls to address our immediate concerns.”
The Commission reminded Petfre that it has been subject to regulatory actions before, on 20 May 2025.
The prior infraction saw Petfre pay a financial penalty of £240,000 for breaching technical standards.
However, the regulator did also note that the operator acted quickly to fix the issue and was fully co-operated with the investigation.
Pierce continued: “They have since delivered an appropriate action plan and taken significant steps to assure the Commission that their current operating model meets our requirements.
“The failure to implement an effective monitoring framework to identify and contact consumers at risk of harm at pace has resulted in a significant regulatory settlement.
“We expect all operators to learn from this case and read the public statement to ensure they do not make the same mistakes.”
Yesterday, Tim Miller announced that he would be stepping away from his role as Executive Director at the Gambling Commission later on this year.
Petfre (Gibraltar) Limited operates both Betfred and Oddsking
