Ladbrokes and Coral betting shops owner GVC has recently been slapped with a £5.9 million penalty for “systematic failings” pertaining to anti-money laundering controls as well as the protection of problem gamblers. According to the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, the failings went on for nearly three years dating back to October 2017. The commission further stated that the failings in questions not only resulted in consumers being harmed but also losing money through the business.

No Social Responsibility Interactions

One of the most notable aspects of the controversial failings was the fact that that the company neglected to ask one of their customers about their income – that particular customer went on to gamble with and lose a whopping £1.5 million. To make it even worse, despite the fact that the customer displayed clear signs of problem gambling, Coral did not bother to conduct any social responsibility interactions. Apparently, they did not see anything wrong when the customer lost a whopping £64,000 in a month or when they logged on to the gaming site upwards of 10 times every day.

Still on negligence, Ladbrokes was also found to have ignored certain clear signs of problem gambling such as when one of their customers lost about £98,000 over two and a half years. Even if that was not much of a red flag, the customer also had a total of 460 attempted deposits declined and had even asked the operator to stop sending promotions to them. In a similar case, the gambling platform also failed to carry out any social responsibility interactions with a customer who deposited over £140,000 within four months of opening their gambling accounts.

GVC Responds

All of these failings occurred between 2014 and 2017 before the acquisition of Ladbrokes Coral by GVC. Even so, GVC, the Ladbrokes Coral Group’s new owner, will have to take responsibility for everything. The company will pay £4.8 million towards responsible gambling initiative and the remaining £1.1 million will be forfeited to individuals whose money may have been stolen.

“These historical failings were unacceptable and since the acquisition, I have overseen a systematic review of the enlarged group’s player protection procedures and the individuals responsible for these problems have exited the business,” Kenny Alexander, the chief executive of GVC stated.

The company has already put in a lot of effort and investments in a bid to ramp up its checks so as to ensure that its customers can actually afford to gamble. One of the most notable moves in this regard is the addition of even more staff members that are solely dedicated to compliance and responsible gambling.