888 licence under review

[Unclefester]

888 has announced that its UK licence is currently under review by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC).

Before players such as Ghost et al get too excited saying they were right all along regarding rigged games, it's apparently nothing along those lines!


In the statement, 888 said the review relates to the:

“manner in which a subsidiary of the company has carried on its licensed activities to ensure compliance with the UKGC operating licence held by the licensee”

Whilst not specified which subsidiary is under review, 888 also said,

"The review has been initiated to assess certain measures that the licensee employs to ensure social responsibility to its customers, including, amongst other items, effective self-exclusion tools across different operating platforms."

[LD]

UKGC has been pretty active on the enforcement front lately.

Earlier this month they issued BGO with a £300,000 fine for advertising breaches. Last year Betfred copped a £800,000 fine for "failures in anti money laundering and social responsibility practices".

If 888 are fined, you can bet there will be a lot of other operators tweaking their self-exclusion systems so that they are also compliant.

Good to see the regulator regulating I guess.

[Unclefester]

888 is facing a wee bit larger fine.... £7.8m


The Gambling Commission has said there were "significant flaws" in the firm's social responsibility processes.
Specifically, a technical failure which meant 7,000 customers who had chosen to bar themselves from their accounts were still able to gamble.

[LD]

A breach is a breach and penalty deserved, but this seems a bit harsh. Had those 7,000 customers been blocked by 888 and wanted to gamble, they would be 3 clicks and 5 minutes from placing bets elsewhere...even after GAMSTOP comes into effect.

Players need to take some responsibility for their own actions.

If there were inducements to play from 888 directed at self-excluded players then this is a different story...completely predatory.

In the wash-up 888 will be happy they only copped a fine, and didn't have their license revoked. Shareholders also welcomed the news, with the 888's stock up 5% or so after the decision.