William Hill fined £6.2m for failing to protect customers and prevent money laundering

Lax regulation means that ten customers were allowed to deposit large sums of money linked to criminal offences

William Hill will be fined £5m for breaching regulation and an additional £1.2m directly linked to criminal activity (PA)

William Hill has been fined at least £6.2m for failing to protect consumers and prevent money laundering, the Gambling Commission has said.

The commission on Tuesday said that its investigation had revealed that between November 2014 and August 2016 the bookmaker had breached anti-money laundering and social responsibility regulations.

“Senior management failed to mitigate risks and have sufficient numbers of staff to ensure their anti-money laundering and social responsibility processes were effective,” the commission said.

It added that this had resulted in 10 customers being allowed to deposit large sums of money linked to criminal offences which resulted in gains for William Hill of around £1.2m.

The bookmaker at the time “did not adequately seek information about the source of their funds or establish whether they were problem gamblers”.

On one occasion, a customer was allowed to deposit £654,000 over nine months without a source of funds checks being carried out. The customer lived in rented accommodation and was employed within the accounts department of a business earning around £30,000 per annum.

Another case outlined by the commission details how a customer was able to deposit £541,000 over the course of 14 months after the operator made the assumption that the customer’s potential annual income could be as high as £365,000, based solely on a verbal conversation and without further probing.

In reality, that customer was earning around £30,000 a year and was funding his gambling habit by stealing from his employer, according to the commission.

William Hill will pay over £5m for breaching regulations and will also be fined for the £1.2m the company earned from those transactions with those 10 customers.

Where victims of the ten customers are identified, they will be reimbursed and if any more incidents of such failures relating to this case emerge, William Hill will be forced to pay up any additional money made from these transactions too.

In response, William Hill said that it would appoint external auditors to review the effectiveness and implementation of its anti-money laundering and social responsibility policies and procedures. It said that it would feedback on that process with the wider industry.

“We will use the full range of our enforcement powers to make gambling fairer and safer,” Neil McArthur, executive director of the commission saiy.

“This was a systemic failing at William Hill which went on for nearly two years and today’s penalty package – which could exceed £6.2m – reflects the seriousness of the breaches,” he added.

“Gambling businesses have a responsibility to ensure that they keep crime out of gambling and tackle problem gambling – and as part of that they must be constantly curious about where the money they are taking is coming from,” he said.

Philip Bowcock, chief executive of William Hill said that his company had fully cooperated with the commission throughout the investigation.

“We are fully committed to operating a sustainable business that properly identifies risk and better protects customers,” he said. “We will continue to assist the commission and work with other operators to improve practices in the areas identified.”