Iconic British betting brand Betfred have done it again. Barely two-years after paying a massive £3.25 million settlement for breaching AML protocols, the North of England’s favourite bookies have now been sanctioned £825,000 by the UK’s regulatory Gambling Commission (UKGC) for repeat anti-money laundering failures.
The company, founded by now-billionaire brothers Fred and Peter Done in Salford, Manchester, in 1966 after Fred won £200 betting on an England victory in the World Cup, has also been issued a formal warning and must undergo an independent audit to assess the effectiveness of its flawed AML and safer gambling controls.
The Commission found shortcomings in the company’s ability to identify and manage money laundering risks linked to customer activity on B3 gaming machines in some of its 1,300 betting shops, concentrated in England’s North-West.
Probe
Despite using machine alerts and daily reports, the operator was unable to assess overall customer spend or associated financial crime risks, the UKGC found in its investigation.
The probe also revealed that Betfred, now headquartered in Warrington, “lacked effective policies for identifying customers subject to financial sanctions, and that its thresholds for source-of-income checks were set at levels that were not sufficiently risk-based”.
After warning that his iconic shops face closure from higher taxes, Betfred co-Founder and Chair Fred Done has scored a spectacular own goal with this latest AML sanction
Last week in a major media blitz, Fred Done, still an active company Chair despite his advancing years, appealed to the Labour government not to hike in-person gambling taxes, warning that such measures could lead to mass closures of his company’s and other High Street betting shops.
The issue has been widely reported by iGamingFuture.
Impact
We contacted Betfred for a response to this latest compliance money laundering rap.
A Betfred spokesperson responded: “Following a review of our UK-based betting shops by the Gambling Commission, we have further strengthened our Anti-Money Laundering and Social Responsibility policies.
“During the review, the Commission found no evidence of criminal spend in our shops.
“Betfred is committed to ensuring a safe gambling experience for all our customers.”
According to the UKGC press statement, Betfred’s social responsibility failings included ineffective monitoring of financial indicators of potential harm for B3 machine customers, missed or insufficient customer interactions when risk indicators were present, and interactions that did not adequately assess or address the impact on player behaviour.
John Pierce, UKGC Director of Enforcement said: “While the failings identified during the 2024 Compliance Assessment were predominantly technical breaches rather than arising from specific customer examples, they were nevertheless unacceptable, particularly with thresholds appearing too high and insufficiently risk based when assessed in practice, and deficiencies in some processes and procedures adopted by the Licensee.
“We fully acknowledge the improvements the operator has already made since these issues were identified. And the independent audit will be key to confirming these changes are sustained so that the operator continues to be fully compliant with social responsibility and anti-money laundering requirements.”
