Betfred coughs-up ?800,000 after AML breaches

Betfred has agreed to pay more than ?800,000 after a Gambling Commission investigation found one of the operator’s VIP customers had been allowed to bet using money stolen from his employer.

The customer, who Betfred said was in its top 5% of customers in terms of spend and profit, was sentenced in January to three years and four months in prison for stealing ?857,000, but not before wagering a large amount of that at Betfred.com between 2013 and 2015.

As part of a subsequent licence review, the Commission found Betfred had failed to adhere to a number of licence requirements including 2007 Money Laundering Regulations, customer due diligence measures, social responsibility codes, and on-going customer monitoring.

In particular, the operator was judged to have failed to request sufficient source of funds documentation from the customer, particularly at the point his frequency and size of bets increased.

In its defence, Betfred told the Commission it believed the customer was a professional gambler who had won money from a rival operator, but had been unable to substantiate that view.

“This belief appears to have been based on the opinion of staff members; we found no evidence or information to substantiate this belief or to identify this as the true source of the customer’s funds,” the Commission said.

During the licence review, Betfred approached the Commission to propose a settlement, accept the Commission’s findings and pledge to improve its policies and procedures.

Betfred agreed to make payment of ?787,500, with ?443,000 to be paid to the victims of criminal activities and the remainder to be spent on socially responsible causes as agreed with the Commission.

The operator also agreed to pay the Commission’s investigation costs of ?30,240 and arrange for an independent third-party review and audit of its money laundering and social responsibility policies and procedures.

“Betfred notes the findings of the Gambling Commission relating to a historical case of an online customer,” a spokesperson for Betfred said today.

“We have greatly strengthened our policies and will continue to review and update our anti-money laundering and social responsibility procedures.

“The Betfred Group remains fully committed to working with the Gambling Commission and the rest of the industry to strengthen existing controls. Responsible gambling is at the very heart of our business.”

Today’s findings follow a series of similar breaches in recent months with Gala Coral, Paddy Power and Rank all having been fined heavily by the Commission.

“The Commission has now concluded a wide range of cases over the last 10 months leading to around ?3.75m in penalty packages,” Richard Watson, programme director at the Commission, said.

“The outcomes and findings in these cases provide a clear signal to operators of the need to learn the lessons from these for social responsibility and money laundering controls, or risk facing tougher sanctions.”