Today, on the 17^th of December 2025, the commission have released a statement in which they reveal Paddy Power Betfair are to face a £2 million following a licence review conducted which revealed social responsibility failures.

Licensees which formed part of the assessment include:
PPB Entertainment Limited
PPB Counterparty Services Limited
Betfair Casino Limited
TSE Malta LP.

The failings noted were focused primarily on safer gambling controls. The review stated that the operator had failed to comply with paragraphs 1, 4, 7, 8 and 11 of SRCP 3.4.3, including:

SRCP 3.4.3 paragraph 1: “The review found that the systems the Licensees had in place were not sensitive enough to identify multiple indicators of harm in all instances. There are clear customer examples of where the systems were not sensitive enough to identify instances of overnight play and velocity of deposits / exhausting limits”. It was found that customers were not elevated for earlier review where sooner action may be required. For example, one customer had deposited £25 in 25 days before they had been identified for manual review.

SRCP 3.4.3 paragraph 4: “During the Compliance Assessment, Commission Officials recognised that the Licensees had several systems in place to identify markers of harm. However, customer examples demonstrated that the velocity of spend, increasing deposits, overnight gambling, and changing betting patterns did not appear to be identified by the Licensees or acted upon until the next day”. An example of this being where a customer was able to lose £12,300 within 5 weeks before an interaction was attempted, at which point a £500 monthly deposit limit was imposed and the customer was able to continue gambling

SRCP 3.4.3 paragraph 7: “The Licensees’ system and process for customer interaction did not flag some indicators of risk of harm in a timely manner for manual intervention and did not feed into automated processes”. As an example, one customer staked a total £86,000 within a 16-day period between November and December 2023 and lost £6000. Despite this there was no manual review and the customer received only automatic interactions.

SRCP 3.4.3 paragraph 8: During the review it was found that “in some instances, the Licensees failed to take appropriate action in a timely manner after identifying behaviours that can be associated with the risk of gambling related harm. Whilst triggers were activated, they were nearly always the day after the gambling session had finished, and no tailored action took place swiftly if indicators were at higher levels”.

SRCP 3.4.3 paragraph 11: It was found that “customers were spending large amounts overnight which led us to conclude that the action taken was not sufficiently timely. Commission Officials are of the view that the Licensees did not consider escalation of automated actions; for example, when a customer exhibited high velocity of spend or was gambling regularly for long periods overnight, there was no consideration of an immediate block until a manual interaction took place”.

John Piece stated;

“Operators must ensure systems to identify and address harm work effectively and at the right time. Over-reliance on automation and failure to intervene when clear harm indicators are present exposes consumers to unnecessary risk. Where we find failings, we will act decisively to protect players.”
As a result, the £2,000,000 will be made in lieu of a regulatory settlement. In regard to the outcome of the investigation the Commission took into account the following factors:

Aggravating factors noted

• the Commission has previously issued public statements regarding similar issues it has observed in relation to other operators
• the serious nature of the breaches identified
• the impact on the licensing objective of protecting vulnerable persons.

Mitigating factors noted

• The operator swiftly put in place an action plan designed to remedy the failings (noting that the Licensees had already commenced some improvements prior to the compliance assessment) and provided updates
• fully co-operated with the Commission’s investigation, worked openly and collaboratively with the Commission throughout the licence review process, and provided information by agreed deadlines

accepted the failings at an appropriately early stage in the investigation.

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS

• Review and ensure all safer gambling controls identify all potential indicators of harm
• Ensure manual review where automatic actions highlight higher levels of risk
• Also ensure the high levels of indicator impose an immediate control pending manual review, for example a deposit block or account block pending interaction.

Ensure your business takes learning from previous Commission regulatory actions.

LINKS TO FULL DETAILS

Read the Commissions full release here

Read Paddy Power Betfairs Public Statement here

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to Contact Us.