UK media savage gaming boss pay packages

A media campaign has criticised the pay of the CEOs at Flutter and Entain.

UK.- As UK gaming operators continue to wait on tenterhooks for long-delayed new gambling legislation, a new front of criticism has opened up. This time it’s not game mechanics or marketing that’s in the limelight, but the pay of betting companies’ CEOs.

The Mail on Sunday yesterday dedicated a report to the pay packets of Flutter CEO Peter Jackson and Entain’s Jette Nygaard-Andersen. Flutter owns Paddy Power and Sky Bet, while Entain owns Ladbrokes, Coral and Foxy Bingo.

The Mail on Sunday reported that Jackson was paid £8.4m last year, putting him among the 20 best-paid bosses in the FTSE 100 index of companies. Meanwhile, Nygaard-Andersen picked up £2.53m last year. The newspaper also noted that she and her predecessors, Shay Segev and Kenny Alexander, had together received £68m since 2015.

It noted that the pay packets dwarf the fines that both companies have received from the Gambling Commission in recent months for breaches of social responsibility rules, noting that Flutter was fined “just £1.17m” for Sky Bet having sent ‘free spin’ offers to people who had asked to be excluded from marketing.

Last month, Entain received the biggest fine the Gambling Commission has ever issued – paying £17m for a series of past failings.

The Mail on Sunday added that “campaigners are angry that executives are raking in vast rewards while letting down customers who are piling up painful losses.”

It quoted Matt Zarb-Cousin, director of campaign group Clean Up Gambling, as saying: ‘This is clearly a very bloated sector that has got away with a lack of regulation for such a long time. These firms are deriving the majority of their revenue from people addicted or at risk.’ 

Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith MP, a member of the All-Party Group on Gambling-Related Harm, said: “Companies should be forced to take greater responsibility for the abuses that are taking place. They shouldn’t be allowed to target problem gamblers. They should do more to check where people’s money comes from and [stop] excessive betting that clearly outweighs people’s income.”