888 hit with £7.8m penalty over social responsibility failings

The Gambling Commission said (5-page / 80KB PDF) 7,010 customers who had self-excluded from gambling via 888's casino, poker and sports platform were nevertheless able to gamble £50.6m between them on 888's bingo platform between October 2015 and September 2016.

The Commission, which is responsible for regulating gambling in Great Britain, carried out a review of 888's operating licence and found the company had breached "a number of social responsibility codes".

The Commission said 888 breached provisions of its licensing conditions and code of practice (LCCP) that require many remote gambling operators to "have and put into effect procedures for self-exclusion and take all reasonable steps to refuse service or to otherwise prevent an individual who has entered a self-exclusion agreement from participating in gambling".

888 also failed customer identification requirements set out in the LCCP which require operators to ensure customers that self-exclude themselves from gambling on one account "are effectively excluded from all gambling with the licensee unless they make it clear that their request relates only to some forms of gambling or gambling using only some of the accounts they hold with the licensee", it said.

The regulator also said 888 had failed to identify problem gambling behaviour, in breach of their LCCP requirements. This failing "resulted in criminal activity", it said.

"Between September 2014 and October 2015 a customer, who had stolen £55,000 from their employer to fund their gambling, was able to stake £1.3million," the Commission said. "During this time the customer placed over 850,000 bets, gambling on average three-four hours a day and in some instances long sessions of uninterrupted play. The duration and extent of the gambling raises serious concerns about 888’s lack of interaction with the customer."

"The frequency and duration of the customer’s gambling would have had a significant impact on their everyday life. As a result of the crime, the customer was sentenced to 16 months in prison for theft and false accounting. Our investigation found no evidence that 888 engaged with the customer to ascertain if they had any problem gambling issues or to confirm their source of income," it said.

Under the terms of a regulatory settlement reached with the Commission, 888 has agreed to repay the customers who had self-excluded from gambling with the company the £3.5m they deposited between them. In addition, 888 will pay £62,023 to the business from which the problem gambler it failed to identify had stolen money.

The Commission said that 888 will also pay a further £4.25m to a "socially responsible cause" in place of a fine for the same amount it would have imposed on the company.

The gambling operator will also be subject to an independent audit of its customer protection processes, it said.

"These serious breaches illustrate how 888 failed to prevent gambling from being a source of crime, and failed to protect vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling," the Commission said. "The Commission is of the view that 888 was frank and cooperative during the licensing review process. Following the investigation, we are also of the view that 888 has recognised its failings and has gone to significant lengths to address the concerns raised to prevent these issues happening again. We consider that this case provides valuable learning for both online and retail operators."

Gambling law expert Audrey Ferrie of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said: "The size of the penalty package is further confirmation, if any were needed, that the Gambling Commission intends to take a very hard line in cases where it considers the operator has been at fault. The Commission announced last November that it intended to use all the tools at its disposal."