The Football Pools fined over social responsibility and anti-money laundering failings
The Gambling Commission found failings in the legacy betting operator’s processes.
UK.- The Gambling Commission will receive a £375,000 settlement from The Football Pools after finding failings in its social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) measures. The betting operator, which is one of the oldest in Britain, was found to have committed a number of licence breaches between September 2022 and August 2023.
The regulator found that the operators’ policies relied too heavily on financial triggers to identify money laundering risks. Meanwhile, hard stops were not automatically applied when AML thresholds were reached, and manual reviews were sometimes carried out too late. The Gambling Commission also found that the operator’s systems for identifying problem gambling to be ineffective.
The regulator said it found “no evidence of sufficient evaluation of individual customers’ interactions”. It said that safer gambling risk profiles, which should have been completed when financial triggers were reached, were created months afterwards.
Director of enforcement John Pierce said: “This case demonstrates that the Licensee’s approach to anti-money laundering risk profiling and monitoring was insufficient, allowing high-risk customers to continue gambling before completing necessary enhanced due diligence checks.
“In addition, the Licensee was over-reliant on financial alerts that whilst preventing significant losses meant it failed to engage in a timely manner with some customers who were potentially experiencing other markers of gambling-related harm such as time spent gambling and high-velocity spend.
“While it is recognised that necessary improvements have been made by the Licensee following the completion of the compliance assessment, the Commission will take further action if these standards are not maintained.”
The regulator said the £375,000 financial settlement will be directed to social responsibility causes. The Gambling Commission reminded all operators to check customer information, to act quickly when warning markers are reached, and to log all behaviour that triggers customer interactions.
Earlier this month, the Gambling Commission issued a £686,070 fine against the retail betting operator Corbett Bookmakers. It found a series of social responsibility and anti-money laundering (AML) failings that occurred between February 2022 and May 2024. The bookmaker, which runs 36 locations, including betting pitches on several UK racecourses, has been ordered to undergo a third-party audit of its AML and safer gambling policies, procedures and controls within 12 months.
