Paddy Power and Betfair Fined £2m for Social Responsibility Failings by Gambling Commission
Paddy Power and Betfair, owned by Flutter Entertainment, have agreed to a £2 million settlement with the Gambling Commission due to social responsibility failings identified during a 2024 compliance assessment. The regulator found that the companies’ systems to detect gambling harms and trigger wellbeing checks were insufficiently sensitive, resulting in late interventions.
Case details revealed that one customer bet £86,000 over 16 days and lost £6,000 without a manual account review despite high spending velocity. Another case involved a gambler spending seven hours and 46 minutes in a single session, placing 300 bets totaling £20,000 over 17 days; the account was only reviewed after an automatic loss-threshold trigger was reached.
The settlement amount of £2 million is just under two hours of Flutter's takings, with the company reporting £10.5 billion in revenue last year and being listed on the London and New York stock exchanges. This penalty marks Flutter's second fine within three years, following a £490,000 fine in 2023 for sending promotional push notifications to self-excluded customers.
Gambling Commission enforcement director John Pierce described the failings as serious but acknowledged the operators’ cooperation and implementation of an action plan, emphasizing that such lapses should not have occurred. Flutter stated that it takes safer gambling responsibilities seriously and has introduced a next-generation safety platform with real-time checks. The company believes the identified issues would not be repeated and confirmed ongoing investment in technology and personnel to improve safety measures.
