The international online gambling community today woke up to the news that 888 UK Limited, a subsidiary of major operator 888 Holdings, was fined the record amount of £7.8 million for poor protections of vulnerable gambling customers.
In a statement, UK’s gambling regulator explained that 888 was found to have failed to prevent more than 7,000 self-excluded customers from its casino, poker, and sports betting products from accessing its bingo games. As a result, players deposited around £3.5 million over a period of more than a year.
The UK Gambling Commission also investigated a separate but related occurrence of a single player who wagered more than £1.3 million over the course of 13 months. Playing 3-4 hours every day and even stealing £55,000 from their employer, the player showed clear symptoms of problem gambling behavior. The gambling regulator was highly critical of the operator’s lack of timely interference with the customer’s activity.
As a result from the UK Gambling Commission’s probe into 888’s poor responsible gambling measures, the operator was fined to pay £7.8 million. It will have to repay the £3.5 million in deposits it had accepted from self-excluded players, to compensate the employer who had been stolen money from, and to further pay the amount of £4.25 million to a responsible gambling cause of its choice.
UK Gambling Commission’s Crackdown on Erring Licensees
The recently imposed penalty on 888 was not the first one the UK Gambling Commission has issued since the beginning of the year. In May, the regulator fined another of its licensees – Alderney-based BGO Entertainment Ltd. – to pay £300,000 for misleading advertising content it had featured on its website. The iGaming brand was also scolded for allowing its affiliates to feature those same promotional materials on their respective websites.
UK’s gambling market is among the most tightly regulated ones, with the UK Gambling Commission being responsible for monitoring and penalizing violators of the country’s gambling laws and main principles under which gaming and betting services should be provided.
Online gambling has turned into the UK industry’s largest sector with gross gambling yield increasing constantly. The amount of £4.461 billion was generated in the period between October 2015 and September 2016, as reported by the UK Gambling Commission itself, with the figure reflecting an increase from £4.2 billion generated during the previous reporting period.
With that said, the UK currently has one of the largest, if not the largest, regulated online markets in the world. However, instances like the above-described two show that there may be serious gaps in the way the industry is regulated and the way gambling services are provided to customers. What is more, they signal that UK Gambling Commission licensees may be violating the regulator’s main principles and, what is worse, may be doing that deliberately.
Casino News Daily will continue its coverage with a series of articles on the topic.
