The United Kingdom Gambling Commission is responsible for the issuing of licenses to companies that wish to offer betting and gaming services to people living in the UK. The organisation is also the one that issues fines to any organisations that break the terms of their licence or otherwise do something that puts people at risk.
If you read, hear or see a report about a gambling company having been issued with a fine for whatever reason, it is the UKGC that will have issued the fine that the business in question has to pay in order to keep its licence.
Whenever the Gambling Commission issues a fine, it also releases information about why the fine has been issued. Sometimes, the thing that led to the fine being handed out in the first place is so egregious that the UKGC considers taking the licence away from the business that is fined.
In fact, there are more than a few companies that have seen their licence taken away from them on account of the fact that they have been too poor in their handling of certain issues, such as money laundering responsibilities, but that hasn’t happened to big ones. Are they above the law?
What Is The Gambling Commission?
Before we look at why the Gambling Commission is happy to revoke some licences but not others, it is first worth having a quick look at what the organisation is and isn’t responsible for.
The UKGC was set up as part of the Gambling Act in 2005, assuming its full powers two years later. It took over from the Gaming Board for Great Britain, which meant regulating any sort of gaming in the UK, such as bingo, arcades, casinos, lotteries and slot machines. The only form of gambling that wasn’t the responsibility of the Gambling Commission was spread betting, which was regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
The stated aims of the UKGC are to ‘keep crime out of gambling’ as well as to ‘ensure that gambling is conducted fairly and openly’. One of the key facets of the Gambling Commission is to ‘protect children and vulnerable people’. As part of that, licences are issued by the UKGC to any operator that wishes to operate in the United Kingdom.
It can issue fines and levies, as well as revoke the licence of any organisation that fails in its responsibilities. This includes both companies based in the UK, as well as those that operate remote licences that sell that wares to people located in Britain.
Notable Actions Taken By The UKGC
Over the years, the Gambling Commission has taken some notable action against businesses that have failed in the responsibilities in one form or another.
In 2016, for example, Camelot, the company behind the National Lottery, failed to verify a fraudulent ticket that it had been presented with seven years earlier. There were, according to the UKGC, poor fraud prevention controls being used, meaning that Camelot had breached its licence terms. A fine of £3 million was issued after police discovered that a member of staff who worked in the fraud department had conspired with a member of the public to claim the £2.5 million prize with a fake ticket, taking the money.
Two years later and William Hill was fined £6.2 million after a series of failures meant that players weren’t protected and possible money laundering had taken place. LeoVegas was fined £600,000 in 2018 after producing misleading adverts and self-exclusion failures. A month later, 32Red was fined £2 million after a problem gambler with an income of £2,150 a month had been allowed to deposit £758,000 over two years. The customer’s affordability hadn’t been checked, in spite of the fact that the company had faced several regulatory rulings over exactly that issue.
In 2019, Ladbrokes Coral were told to pay £5.9 million because of past failings around money laundering and social responsibility. An investigation into the companies found that they had failed to put effective safeguards in place to stop customers from suffering from gambling related harm as well as over money laundering issues, with these failures occurring between November 2014 and October 2017. These are all examples of times when the UKGC has felt it appropriate to issue a fine to a company, with the list obviously being far from exhaustive but merely examples.
Companies That Have Had Their Licences Suspended Or Revoked
As you might imagine, there have been occasions when the Gambling Commission have decided to either suspend a company’s licence or else revoke it altogether. In February of 2000, for example, the UKGC suspended the licence of Triplebet’s Matchbook after a review of the company’s licence had begun in August of 2018 and found that it had failed in its duties regarding ‘anti-money laundering measures’. After the licence was suspended, further conditions were imposed alongside a financial penalty of £739,099 had to be paid by the organisation.
Earlier in the year, a company called Stakers Limited had their licence suspended when a review took place into whether or not the company had breached conditions of its licence. More often than not, the Gambling Commission will issue a fine for companies to pay before looking into a possible suspension or revocation of its licence. In October of 2018, for example, Paddy Power Betfair had to pay £2.2 million for social responsibility failings. That was the same year that Daub Alderney were fined £7.1 million for the same reason, as well as money laundering failures.
The Bigger Companies Only Ever Get Fined
At the time of writing, none of the bigger companies that operate in the United Kingdom have had their licence suspended or revoked.
In 2023, William Hill and the sister brand Mr Green were issued with a record fine of £19.2 million. This came on the back of the companies failing to stop punters from betting thousands of pounds in minutes without any sort of affordability checks being carried out. More than 300 people were allowed to bet, in spite of the fact that they had signed up to a ‘self-exclusion’ scheme that should have stopped them from being able to do so.
William Hill, Mr Green and 888 had all previous been hit with fines for similar ‘systematic failings’, but these fines seem to do little to deter the companies from continuing their behaviour. The likelihood is that the profit that they made from their ‘failures’ were more than the fines issued by the UKGC for these failures.
The fine of £19.2 million will have been recouped in less than four days trading, which points out the folly of hitting companies that can basically print money with a financial penalty rather than doing something more noteworthy by way of punishment.
Are They Above The Law?
When the Gambling Commission confirmed the record fine for 888 Group, which owns William Hill, it said that it had considered suspending the British operator’s licence. Ultimately, though, a decision to suspend the licence was not taken.
This, for many, is proof that the biggest companies are ‘above the law’. The commission has never suspended a big operator’s licence, with the suggestion in this case being that William Hill had moved swiftly to make changes in the way that it operates. The Commission has the power to suspend any business’ licence but chooses not to when they are one of the ‘big’ operators.
Andrew Rhodes, the Chief Executive of the UKGC, 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.”
The fact that other companies are unlikely to see such lenience put their way would be a good reason for many to feel that it is one rule for them, a different one for the big companies.
There is certainly an argument that it is not in the interests of either the Gambling Commission nor the British government to issue licence suspensions or revocations to the biggest businesses in operation. If the likes of William Hill, Paddy Power or Ladbrokes were to decide to stop operating to British punters, it would see a huge drop in tax taken from them.
There is a delicate balance to be struck, with ‘fines’ seen as the right way forward. It allows money to be spent in areas that it is needed, for operators to keep offering their services without being impacted too much and for it to look like something is happening.
In previous years, when a licence suspension has been threatened, the big operators have turned around with 500 pages of legal documents explaining why that wouldn’t be a good idea. The notion is that the issuing of such a suspension would be challenged, as well as the very right that the UKGC has to make it. Whether that is the sort of thing that will be made cleaner in the forthcoming changes to the Gambling Act remains to be seen, but those that have been paying attention certainly wouldn’t bet on it.