Betfred has been ordered to pay a financial penalty of £825,000 ($1.1m) by the UK's gambling regulatory body following an investigation which revealed ineffective anti-money laundering (AML) and safer gambling controls.
The operator has been pulled up by the Gambling Commission for a multitude of shortcomings pertaining to multiple areas of its business. Spanning across both AML and social responsibility, Betfred's primary failing - noted by the commission - pertained to its B3 gaming machines.
Indeed, the company when questioned could not determine specific spending on the machine by customers, rendering it unable to identify any spending habits that may have indicated gambling harms. By extension, this shortfall also indicated that Betfred was unable to pinpoint any potential money laundering risks, despite utilising daily reports and machine alerts at the time of assessment in 2024.
Elsewhere, the Gambling Commission has outlined that Betfred failed to implement adequate policy to help identify and intervene with customers who may have been, themselves, previously subject to financial sanction - and did not pursue customer gambling harm risk indicators with enough frequency.
Moreover, it has been stated that the quality of protective customer intervention interactions was below standards required - with the commission citing a lack of empathy pertaining to the 'impact of the interaction' on the customer. Regarding further AML-related failings - also falling under the blanket of social responsibility - Betfred was also said to have set its source of income thresholds too high. Labelled as 'inappropriately risk based' thresholds allowed for a maximum £15,000 in losses and £125,000 in stakes over 365 days.
As such, the operator must now pay the £825,000 penalty fee and undergo a third-party audit procedure to ensure it is meeting the required controls around the issues raised in this investigation.
Gambling Commission Director of Enforcement, John Pierce, said: "While the failings identified during the 2024 Compliance Assessment were predominantly technical breaches rather than arising from specific customer examples, they were nevertheless unacceptable, particularly with thresholds appearing too high and insufficiently risk based when assessed in practice, and deficiencies in some processes and procedures adopted by the licensee.
"We fully acknowledge the improvements the operator has already made since these issues were identified, and the independent audit will be key to confirming these changes are sustained so that the operator continues to be fully compliant with social responsibility and anti-money laundering requirements."
This latest development comes after Betfred threatened to close all 1,297 of its existing retail branches in October if the UK Government raised gambling taxes as part of its Autumn Budget - a statement which was followed last month by the government increasing online betting duty to 40%, but leaving the retail sector untouched.
In 2023, Betfred paid a £3.25m financial penalty for similar regulatory breaches in the UK market
