William Hill to pay record £19.2m for ‘widespread and alarming’ failures

theguardian.com:

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 case was a £17m fine imposed on Entain, the gambling firm behind Ladbrokes and Coral, last August.

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,