William Hill condemned to a record fine: 21.83 million Euro

It is such a shame: no other gambling provider which holds a British licence had ever had to put up with such a high fine as the one which was imposed quite recently on the bookmaker William Hill. The latter has been slapped with a fine of 19.2 million pounds because of non-compliance issues – to be more precise – non-compliance with the player protection and anti-money laundering regulations. When converted this fine comes up to around 21.83 million Euro!

There is no doubt that the UK Gambling Commission is one of the strictest regulating bodies worldwide. At the end of March 2023, the Authority substantiated this in an impressive way. After an investigation that lasted 15 months William Hill, which is one of the largest gambling groups, was hanged with a fine, the amount of which is nearly unbelievable.

The amount of 19.2 million British pounds is to be shared by several branches of the company. In a statement the Gambling Commission explains: “WHG (International) Limited, the operator of williamhill.com, pays 12.5 million pounds, Mr Green Limited, the operator of mrgreen.com, pays 3.7 million pounds and William Hill Organization Limited, the operator of 1344 gambling stations in Great Britain pays 3 million pounds.”

For a short while there was also the possibility that the licence would be evoked. Andrew Rhodes, manager of the Gambling Commission of Great Britain speaks about this in an official statement:

“The shortcomings that we discovered when we started these investigations were so widespread and alarming that we were seriously considering suspending the firm’s licence. However, since the operator admitted immediately that it had broken the law and collaborated with us to implement improvements quickly, we opted instead for the largest enforcement payment in our history.”

Wondering: why all this?

William Hill and the associated brands have obviously failed to comply with the licence agreements which they have with the responsible regulating authority. The Gambling Commission is accusing the group of several non-compliance issues around player protection and the prevention of money laundering. In general, customers could deposit and gamble amounts which were much too high. The origin of these amounts was not questioned, and potential problem players were hardly protected from excessive spending.

William Hill is accused of these omissions as regards social responsibility (player protection)

The list of misconducts in this area is actually very long. The Gambling Commission has published the complete list in its official statement. To respect the framework, we are here just listing the most serious misconducts.

• Directly after opening an account, a new customer was allowed to spend 23,000 pounds within 20 minutes (!) – without there being any form of checks.

• Persons who are potentially at risk of being harmed by gambling were not adequately identified by the provider: A player who was at risk lost 14,902 pounds in 70 minutes at Mr.Green.

• The group did not uphold the prescribed 24 hours period between the authorisation to increase a stake and this being in fact implemented: A customer could make a bet of more than 100,000 pounds immediately after applying for it.

• An operator of a betting place allowed one of its customers to lose 10,600 pounds in 2 days – he received no warning and there were no protection measures from the side of the proprietor or the personnel.

These seem to have gone wrong as regards money laundering guidelines

There are more charges for non-compliance with money laundering guidelines than non-compliance with player protection measures. However, the Gambling Commission found too many faults. Hereunder we are also listing the most central points.

• On several occasions very high payment amounts were accepted without any further questions: in one case there were more than 70,000 pounds within a month.

• No verifying documents were collected from a customer who staked 276,942 pounds and lost 24.395 pounds over two months: there were similar cases on a smaller scale.

• The guidelines and the possible measures for money laundering risks were not adequately shown in the Terms and Conditions and other important documents.

• The staff were not adequately trained in money laundering measures.

Strong push from UK Gambling Commission against license infringements

Currently the UK Gambling Commission seems to be on a proper warning drive. Believe it or not, according to official information, since the beginning of 2022, the Commission has concluded 26 cases in which the operators of games of chance had to pay more than 76 million pounds for breaching the rules. Just a week before the fine against William Hill was announced, the Gambling Commission imposed a fine of 7.3 million pounds against two services of the Kindred Group plc.

Andrew Rhodes speaks about the activities:

“During the last 15 months we did not adopt the measures which were in place against gambling operators, but now we are seeing the first signs of improvements. There are indications that the industry is doing more to make gambling safer and to reduce the possibilities of having criminal funds channelled into the business.”

Conclusion

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