Betting firms gamble on data science to stop the rot

As William Hill Group becomes the latest business to be whacked in a major crackdown on industry failings, the betting sector is gambling on the appliance of data science to try to spot harms and criminal risk more quickly.

The move follows a total of £19.2m in fines issued to three businesses owned by William Hill Group for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.

WHG (International), which runs williamhill.com, will pay £12.5m, Mr Green, which runs mrgreen.com, will pay £3.7m and William Hill Organisation, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across the UK, will pay £3m.

In a catalogue of failures, one person was allowed to open a new account and bet £32,500 over two days without any checks, another customer lost £14,902 in 70 minutes and a third was allowed to place a £100,000 bet immediately, even though he had a £70,000 credit limit.

The group also failed to ask for source of funds evidence when a fourth customer staked £19,000 in a single bet, and did the same in another case when a punter bet £39,324 and lost £20,360 over 12 days.

The William Hill rulings are just the latest in a long line of enforcement cases – 26 to be precise – since the start of 2022, with operators paying over £76m due to regulatory breaches.

Last week, two Kindred Group companies – 32Red and Platinum Gaming – were slapped with fines totalling £7.1m for failing to use customer data to identify problem gambling as well as for having inadequate anti-money laundering measures.

Gambling Commission chief executive Andrew Rhodes said: “In the past 15 months we have taken unprecedented action against gambling operators, but we are now starting to see signs of improvement.

“There are indications that the industry is doing more to make gambling safer and reducing the possibility of criminal funds entering their businesses.

“Operators are now using algorithms to spot gambling harms or criminal risk more quickly, interacting with consumers sooner, and generally having more effective policies and procedures in place.”