Sky Betting and Gaming latest to be fined for social responsibility failures

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has sanctioned Bonne Terre Limited t/a SkyBetting and Gaming (SBG) with a GBP 1,008,600 penalty package for social responsibility failures.

Citing “serious” weaknesses in self-exclusion facilities, the investigation found:

736 self-excluded customers were able to open and use duplicate accounts to gamble.

Around 50,000 self-excluded customers received marketing material by email, mobile text or a push notification within a mobile app.

36,748 self-excluded customers did not have their account balance funds returned to them on account closure.

Richard Watson, Programme Director, said: “This was a serious failure affecting thousands of potentially vulnerable customers and the £1m penalty package should serve as a warning to all gambling businesses.

“Protecting consumers from gambling-related harm is a priority for us and where we see operators failing in their responsibility to keep their customers safe we will take tough action.

The penalty package :

1. Distributes GBP 241,894 to charity contributions as follows:

GBP 24,588 – the amount contained in the accounts of self-excluded customers which could not be returned to those customers. This is in addition to the sum already returned directly to affected customers.

GBP 217,306 – the Gross Gambling Yield (profit) from customers who opened and used accounts whilst self-excluded, between November 2014 and November 2017.

2. A further payment of GBP 750,000 to charities for socially responsible purposes in lieu of a financial penalty which the Commission would otherwise impose for breach of a licence condition.

This portion of the penalty comprises:

oGBP 450,000 for the participation in gambling breach.

oGBP 250,000 for the marketing material breach.

oGBP 50,000 for the return of funds breach.

3. Payment of GBP 16,700 towards the Commission’s investigative costs.

Watson noted that “Skybet reported the issues to us quickly, cooperated with us and has taken this investigation seriously.”

The full report can be read here.