Hills fined £19 million!!!

Should have been £191m or a reflection of their turnover; £19.1m is peanut in comparison. The recent fines on scumbag online bookies preying on the vulnerables esp during the night when boredom would is most prevalent.

What was the previous head honcho at the Gambling Commission doing? He did well to resign before the sack. Nevertheless, any future fines on bookies must be in accordance with their turnover to be an effective deterrent. Or, a suspension of their licence to trade - a threat is never an effective deterrent for any bookie.

Where does the 19 million go ?

I never saw this thread so I will post mine again from The Guardian paper here.

Julia Kollewe
Tue 28 Mar 2023 08.05 BST

William Hill has been fined a record £19m for “widespread and alarming” social responsibility and anti-money-laundering failures, the Gambling Commission has announced.

Three gambling businesses owned by William Hill will pay a total of £19.2m – the largest penalty in the commission’s history. The previous largest fine was £17m imposed last August on Entain, the gambling firm behind Ladbrokes and Coral.

The regulator said it had considered suspending William Hill’s licence but this was avoided after the company worked rapidly to make changes.

Social responsibility failures at William Hill businesses included allowing one customer to open a new account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes; allowing another to open an account and spend £18,000 in 24 hours; and allowing a third customer to spend £32,500 over two days – all without any checks. The commission said the company failed to carry out checks at an early stage in the customer’s journey, which meant one user lost £14,902 in 70 minutes.

William Hill was also found to have failed to identify risk of harm or intervene with certain customers earlier enough – one lost £54,252 in four weeks without the operator seeking income evidence or carrying out adequate checks. The firm also failed to apply a 24-hour delay between receiving a request for an increase in a credit limit and granting it: one customer was allowed to immediately place a £100,000 bet when his credit limit had been set at £70,000.

WHG (International) Ltd, which runs williamhill.com, will pay £12.5m; Mr Green Ltd, which runs mrgreen.com, will pay £3.7m; and William Hill Organisation Ltd, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across Britain, will pay £3m.

The Gambling Commission chief executive, Andrew Rhodes, 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.”

Ineffective controls allowed 331 customers to gamble with WHG (International) Ltd despite having self-excluded from mrgreen.com.

Anti-money-laundering failures included allowing customers to deposit large amounts without conducting appropriate checks. One customer was able to spend and lose £70,134 in a month, while another lost £38,000 in five weeks and a third lost £36,000 in four days.

William Hill was bought by the online casino company 888 Holdings from the Las Vegas company Caesars in a £2.2bn deal in 2021.

An 888 spokesperson said: “The settlement relates to the period when William Hill was under the previous ownership and management. After William Hill was acquired, the company quickly addressed the identified issues with the implementation of a rigorous action plan.

“The entire group shares the Gambling Commission’s commitment to improve compliance standards across the industry and we will continue to work collaboratively with the regulator and other stakeholders to achieve this.”

Since the start of 2022, the Gambling Commission has concluded 26 enforcement cases, which resulted in operators paying more than £76m because of regulatory failures.

Rhodes said: “In the last 15 months we have taken unprecedented action against gambling operators, but we are now starting to see signs of improvement. There are indications that the industry is doing more to make gambling safer and reducing the possibility of criminal funds entering their businesses.

“Operators are using algorithms to spot gambling harms or criminal risk more quickly, interacting with consumers sooner, and generally having more effective policies and procedures in place.”

The regulator said it had considered suspending William Hill’s licence but this was avoided after the company worked rapidly to make changes.  Was Never going to happen and the GC are toothless and weak.

Doubt a single penny of these large sums went on horses.

Just looked, it's only 25 years, seems longer...

Telephone account shut down 94,

Opened Internet account as moved house in 97,
Must have been 98.

You have to laugh that’s a good effort getting an account closed in the 90s back then they only closed unviable accounts as opposed to nowadays when any whiff of a clue your gone.

It would coincide with the shops be much more aware of what was happening in other shops

They do indeed have a slots game called Brewster's Millions

None of minecas my max bet is £7.50 ew on horses but unlimited on the casino

jimnast, the GC is established by statute - the Gambling Act 2005. I have no precise knowledge of where the fines go but the general rule is that a statutory body repays fines levied to the State, in return for being funded by them. There was the odd exception. When I was a prosecutor, there was talk of allocating a portion of £ confiscated from criminals by the Crown Court to the police/CPS. Not sure much came of that though I think the cops got a small %. The CPS didn't though!

Thanks Donegal I know racecourse bookmakers contribute to the problem gamblers pot,wasn’t sure if any of this would end up there.

Hope your feeling better

According to the report from the Post the money goes to do-gooders:

"The payment will be made to socially responsible good causes with WHG (International), which runs williamhill.com, to pay £12.5m. Mr Green, which runs mrgreen.com, an online gambling company founded in 2007, will pay £3.7m, while the William Hill Organization Limited, which oversees more than 1,300 betting outlets across Britain, will pay £3m."

Which might just as easily say 'We're giving the £19M to a mate of mine who runs an anti-gambling website'. Not in any way claiming that's the case, but a little more clarity ought to be required. Who defines what qualifies as a socially responsible good cause?

If you open an account with Hills and continue playing the slots after you have used up your (welcome bonus) free spins on the slots - you will be just fine.

If you just use the free (welcome bonus!) spins on the slots and then don't continue playing with your own (real) money afterwards, you will get this message (or similar).

After a review, we weren't able to satisfy our high standards about the ownership of the account. Therefore our final decision is that this account will remain closed. We apologies for any inconvenience caused; however, this information provided to you is based on the result of a full investigation by our Security.

Simples - they are only and solely "scoping" for degenerate addicts.

if you have an account open with any of these scumbags it's because they've analysed everything you've gambled on and they are satisfied you are "easy meat".

which is why most on here don't have any left.

The regulator said it had considered suspending William Hill’s licence

telling people they can have 5p on a horse but 25k+ in the slots isn't bookmaking, that's running an arcade.  so the bookmakers licence should be long gone anyway.

Do the governments interfere with young people spending 12 hours plus a day on internet games when there brains should be learning and developing?

I won’t be having one brassneck to old now for been told what to do.