{"id":324510,"date":"2025-12-19T11:12:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T11:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324510\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:12:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T11:12:19","slug":"paddy-power-betfair-must-pay-2m-for-problem-gambling-failings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/324510\/","title":{"rendered":"Paddy Power Betfair must pay \u00a32m for problem gambling failings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paddy Power Betfair has agreed to pay a \u00a32 million penalty after the industry watchdog found it failed to step in quickly enough when customers deposited large sums of money. <\/p>\n

The Gambling Commission said a compliance assessment last year uncovered social responsibility failures at Paddy Power Betfair, whose customer interactions \u201cfell far short of what is required\u201d. <\/p>\n

In one case, Paddy Power Betfair, which is owned by Flutter Entertainment<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest online betting company, failed to intervene despite a customer staking \u00a386,000 over a 16-day period \u2014 where they ultimately lost \u00a36,000 \u2014 and completed a manual review only when the losses escalated. <\/p>\n

Other failures highlighted by the commission include one instance where the company did not step in soon enough when a customer went on an intense betting spree during which they placed more than 300 bets totalling \u00a320,000, with one session lasting more than seven hours. <\/p>\n

Four operators trading under the names Paddy Power and Betfair \u2014 PPB Entertainment, PPB Counterparty Services, Betfair Casino and TSE Malta \u2014 will pay the money as part of the settlement.<\/p>\n

John Pierce, commission director of enforcement at the Gambling Commission, said the \u00a32 million settlement reflected \u201cthe seriousness of the failings identified and the importance of meeting social responsibility and customer interaction standards\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese failings should never have occurred,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile the licensees co-operated fully with the investigation, accepted the failings early and implemented an action plan quickly, this immediate response is the minimum we expect from operators when serious shortcomings are identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betting firms must put in place systems and processes to monitor gambling activity to identify worrying behaviours from the point when an account is opened. <\/p>\n

While Paddy Power had several systems in place, the examples of failures uncovered showed \u201cthe velocity of spend, increasing deposits, overnight gambling, and changing betting patterns did not appear to be identified by the licensees or acted upon until the next day\u201d, according to the commission.<\/p>\n

It is the second sanction in just over two years for the business. In May 2023, the commission fined Paddy Power and Betfair \u00a3490,000<\/a> for sending promotional material to customers who had excluded themselves from gambling.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Flutter\u2019s UK and Ireland business said: \u201cFlutter takes its safer gambling responsibilities incredibly seriously and we firmly believe that we lead the industry in player protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCustomer safety is our No 1 priority and there is no suggestion that any of the customers reviewed by the Gambling Commission experienced any harm. Our controls have evolved significantly and we recently introduced a next generation customer safety platform, with the vast majority of checks now happening in real-time. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs such, we are confident that the issues highlighted by the commission in its public statement would not be repeated today. We continue to invest in our technology and our people to raise standards in the regulated industry.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paddy Power Betfair has agreed to pay a \u00a32 million penalty after the industry watchdog found it failed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[102,1906,6623,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-324510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}