Paddy Power Betfair fined £2.2m for social responsibility failures

UK-listed gambling operator Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) has been penalized £2.2m after some of its customers gambled with stolen money and other customers’ problem gambling behavior went unchallenged.

On Tuesday, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) announced PPB’s trip to the regulatory woodshed, based on the company’s failure to “adequately interact with customers who were displaying signs of problem gambling” and the failure to “adequately carry out anti-money laundering [AML] checks.”

The AML shortcomings occurred at PPB’s exchange betting service Betfair, through which “significant amounts of stolen money” flowed, according to UKGC exec director Richard Watson. The moneys were wagered in 2016 by two Betfair customers, both of whom displayed “signs of problem gambling on numerous occasions.”

One of these Betfair punters was gambling with money stolen from his employer, described in the settlement as “a charity.” The Guardian identified the charity as the Birmingham Dogs Home and the Betfair customer as the charity’s former boss Simon Price, who was sentenced to five years in prison last December for stealing £900k over a four-year period.