Gambling group hit with £337k settlement over anti-money laundering failings

A subsidiary of Warrington-based gambling giant Betfred has had to pay costs of £337,000 to the industry watchdog after failure to carry out adequate anti-money laundering checks.

The Gambling Commission has revealed that it had reached a settlement with Petfre (Gibraltar), trading as Betfred, over the case.

The Investigation into Petfre was the result of information passed to the Commission regarding a customer who had been convicted of a £2m fraud and had been spending stolen money through several gambling operators including Petfre.

This customer opened multiple gambling accounts in a very short period of time, making large deposits and experiencing significant losses. In respect of Petfre, over a 12-day period in November 2017 he deposited £210,000 and lost £140,000.

The commission said the management of this customer in relation to anti-money laundering (AML) raised significant concerns regarding the effectiveness of the policies and procedures that Petfre had in place and its management of risks to the licensing objectives. Since this incident Petfre has made improvements to its AML procedures to prevent a recurrence of the failings.

Petfre has acknowledged and accepted that there were shortcomings in the application of its AML controls and its policies and procedures, and has accepted that it failed to act in accordance with the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice, and the commission’s advice to operators.

As part of the settlement Petfre will return £140,000 to the identified victim and make a £182,000 payment in lieu of a financial penalty which will be spent accelerating delivery of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms.

Petfre also had to pay £15,168.42 towards the costs of the Commission’s investigation.

The commission said: “Our investigation found, and Petfre accept, that there were weaknesses in its systems relating to how it managed this customer for anti-money laundering.

“We consider that this case provides valuable learning for remote (online) and non-remote gambling operators.”