William Hill hit with £19m fine after punter spends £23k in 20 minutes
William Hill fined a record £19 million after a gambler spent £23,000 in just 20 minutes
William Hill has been hit with a record fine for allowing gamblers to lose too much money gambling – with a customer spending £23,000 in just 20 minutes.
The gaming commission said the High Street bookmaker must pay £19.2 million for ‘social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures’.
The fine – the highest ever by the commission – came after the Mail revealed a record fine was imminent.
Record fine: Gambling Commission said William Hill must pay £19.2m for ‘social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures’
The penalty is related to brands that do not provide enough protection and allow customers to deposit huge amounts without properly checking the players.
The gambling watchdog imposes obligations on bookmakers to ensure gamblers gamble responsibly and can hand out penalties if standards are not met.
The commission found a series of shortcomings of William Hill brands, including their bookies, williamhill.com and online casino site Mr Green.
The regulator found that one customer was allowed to open an account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes without any checks, and another customer could deposit and lose £70,134 in a month.
William Hill was bought last year by London-listed gambling group 888 in a £2 billion deal.
A spokesman for 888 said: ‘The settlement covers the period when William Hill was owned and operated.
After William Hill was acquired, the company quickly addressed the identified issues with the implementation of a rigorous action plan.”
But 888 has been in trouble of its own in recent months after it launched an investigation into failure to follow anti-money laundering processes in the Middle East, with its boss unexpectedly dropping out in February.
The previous largest fine was £17 million against Entain in August last year.
However, Will Prochaska, strategy director at Gambling With Lives, a charity set up by families bereaved of gambling-related suicides, said yesterday: “Fines will not stop the gambling industry from deliberately exploiting its customers and driving hundreds to suicide every year. to float. ‘