William Hill fined record £19.2 million for ‘widespread’ failures by gambling regulator

British gambling company William Hill has been issued a record £19.2 million fine by the UK gambling regulator.

Three gambling businesses owned by William Hill will pay the eye-watering sum for “widespread and alarming” social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures, the Gambling Commission has said.

The settlement is the largest in the Gambling Commission’s history. The businesses that will pay the fines are:

• WHG (International) Limited, which runs williamhill.com, will pay £12.5 million
• Mr Green Limited, which runs mrgreen.com, will pay £3.7 million
• William Hill Organisation Limited, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across Britain, will pay £3 million

Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes said: “When we launched this investigation the failings we uncovered were so widespread and alarming serious consideration was given to licence suspension.

“However, because the operator immediately recognised their failings and worked with us to swiftly implement improvements, we instead opted for the largest enforcement payment in our history.”

Social responsibility failures at William Hill businesses included allowing one customer to open a new account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes, while another was allowed to open an account and spend £18,000 in 24 hours.

A third failure included allowing a customer to spend £32,500 over two days – all without any checks. Ineffective controls also allowed 331 customers to gamble with WHG (International) Limited despite having self-excluded with Mr Green.

In regard to anti-money laundering (AML) failures, this included allowing customers to deposit large amounts without carrying out appropriate checks. Examples of failures included allowing one customer to spend and lose £70,134 in a month, another to lose £38,000 in five weeks, and a third to lose £36,000 in four days.

A spokesman for 888, which owns William Hill, said: “The settlement relates to the period when William Hill was under the previous ownership and management. After William Hill was acquired, the company quickly addressed the identified issues with the implementation of a rigorous action plan.

“The entire group shares the Gambling Commission’s commitment to improve compliance standards across the industry and we will continue to work collaboratively with the regulator and other stakeholders to achieve this.”

The Gambling Commission said all £19.2 million will be directed towards “socially responsible purposes” as part of a regulatory settlement. The previous largest case was a £17 million action taken against Entain in August last year.

Will Prochaska, strategy director at Gambling with Lives, a charity set up by families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, said: “Fines won’t stop the gambling industry from deliberately exploiting its customers and driving hundreds every year to suicide. Knowledge that this record fine was coming didn’t prevent 888 from acquiring William Hill, they merely treated it as a cost of doing business.

“The deaths will continue until the Gambling Commission uses the powers it already has to remove gambling firms’ licences and hold individual executives liable for these failures, or until the government announces significant reforms to gambling regulation.

“In the UK we desperately need the government to end gambling advertising and stop gambling companies from luring people to gamble more than they can afford.”

The William Hill settlement comes just a week after the commission fined two operators owned by Kindred Group a combined £7.2 million and is the largest enforcement case taken on by the regulator.

Mr Rhodes added: “In the last 15 months we have taken unprecedented action against gambling operators, but we are now starting to see signs of improvement. There are indications that the industry is doing more to make gambling safer and reducing the possibility of criminal funds entering their businesses.”