Sky Bet fined £1m
March 29, 2018
Sky Bet has been fined £1 million (€1.14m) for allowing hundreds of potentially vulnerable people to keep betting after they asked to be barred from doing so, while sending promotional material to 50,000 more.
Industry regulator the Gambling Commission said Sky Bet was guilty of failings in its self-exclusion tools, which are meant to help people who fear they have a gambling problem lock themselves out of online casinos and sports betting.
The fine comes amid delays to the launch of an industry-wide system called GamStop designed to allow addicts to block themselves from multiple companies, following high-profile problems with individual firms’ self-exclusion schemes.
The Gambling Commission said 736 Sky Bet customers who had self-excluded were able to open new accounts, in some cases using the same details previously registered with the company.
About 50,000 self-excluded customers continued to receive marketing material from Sky Bet by email, text or a mobile app notification after self-excluding.
The fine would have been higher but Sky Bet reported the issue to the Gambling Commission of its own accord.
The vast majority of the £1 million fine will be paid to gambling charities.