Paddy Power Betfair takes responsibility for two million pounds following its failure to deal with players suffering from gambling addiction
Paddy Power Betfair has agreed to pay nearly two million pounds (£2m) in light of a report indicating its failure to intervene quickly enough when it appeared that its players were suffering from gambling-related problems.
The Gambling Commission revealed several cases where the company, as a betting entity, did not intervene fast enough for its players who engaged in harmful gambling behaviors, including a case of a player who placed bets worth £86,000 in less than two weeks, but “no manual account assessment took place” for that player.
Betting companies are required to have systems and processes to track suspicious betting activity.
Flutter Entertainment, the parent company of Paddy Power Betfair, stated that it takes customer safety seriously and believes the issues pointed out by the regulator will not happen again.
The Gambling Commission stated that the assessment of companies’ obligations last year revealed a failure in social responsibility within the company, where customer interaction was “much lower” than required.
It added that while Paddy Power had systems to identify problem gambling, the examples revealing failure show that “velocity of spend, increased deposits, overnight betting, and changes in betting patterns did not appear to be identified by the licensees or acted upon until the next day.”
The Commission provided another example of a player who entered intense betting sessions, one of which lasted for nearly eight hours. The player placed more than 300 bets with a total value of £20,000.
It added that another player made a deposit of £25,000 over 25 days “before any interaction occurred.”
Jon Prideaux, the executive director of gambling regulations at the Gambling Commission, stated that the size of the payment “reflects the seriousness of the failures identified.”
Prideaux said: “These failures should never happen.”
He continued: “While the licensees cooperated fully with the investigation, acknowledged the failures quickly, and implemented an action plan rapidly, this immediate response is the minimum we expect from operators when serious weaknesses are identified.”
Mr. Prideaux added: “Over-reliance on automation and failure to intervene when clear indicators of harm emerge exposes users to unnecessary risks.”
Four commercial organizations affiliated with the companies operating under the names “Paddy Power” and “Betfair” — “PPB Entertainment,” “PPB Counterparty Services,” “Betfair Casino,” and “TSE Malta” — will pay the money as part of the reached agreement.
The two-million-pound financial payment is described as a “payment in lieu of a financial penalty” and represents the second time in two years the regulator has demanded it from Paddy Power Betfair.
The company was ordered to pay £490,000 in 2023 for sending marketing notifications to self-excluded customers.
A spokesperson for Flutter’s UK and Ireland business said: “Flutter takes its safer gambling responsibilities very seriously and we are confident that we provide industry-leading player protections.”
He added: “Customer safety is our number one priority and there is no suggestion that any of the customers reviewed by the Gambling Commission suffered any harm.”
He noted that “our monitoring systems have evolved significantly and, as a result, we recently implemented a next-generation customer safety platform, where most monitoring takes place in real-time.”
He concluded by saying: “As a result, we believe that the problems pointed out by the Gambling Commission in its public statement would not happen again today.”
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