The Gambling Commission has ordered NetBet to pay £650,000 in anti-money laundering (AML) and social responsibility failures.
NetBet, which operates the UK’s Netbet.co.uk website, will pay the penalty as part of a settlement with the watchdog and all funds will go to socially responsible causes.
Just last month, the operator behind major UK gambling firm Unibet, Platinum Gaming, was fined £10 million by the Gambling Commission.
An investigation identified failings between November 2023 and July 2024 related to AML.
NetBet was found to be overreliant on financial triggers with customers spending disproportionally compared to their reported net income.
In one case, a player was not flagged to the money laundering reporting officer and remained at low-risk for AML despite depositing in the region of £2,000 across a four-day span.
The player worked in a high-risk occupation and a pay slip later submitted by the user showed monthly net pay of around £2,800 – the disproportionate spend was not considered even when £1,650 was put into the account within a two-hour period.
The regulator highlighted examples of ‘significant’ gambling activity taking place where players displayed concerning behaviours but NetBet still considered them low-risk and decided not to act.
The Gambling Commission criticised NetBet’s money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment, which omitted key risks such as management of third-party business relationships, high stakes gambling and controls regarding third-country nationals living in the UK.
In the area of social responsibility failures, two areas of concern were flagged – first of all, the operator did not implement effective customer interaction systems and processes to minimise risk of gambling harm.
Alongside that, NetBet failed to identify indicators of harm in a timely manner with signs such as overnight play, frequency of deposits and increased gameplay not flagged until a manual review of the account took place.
The Gambling Commission also said NetBet breached Licence Condition 15.3.1 in reference to providing timely and accurate information to the watchdog, submitting flawed regulatory returns.
Another similar incident saw the operator that runs popular online casino Lottomart, Maple International Ventures, fined £360,000 following a probe by the regulator.
Joe Lyons is a betting industry writer for GamblingIndustryNews with years of experience on reputable gambling websites. Joe specialises in long form content in the world of sports betting and gambling. Joe is recognised as an expert in sports fields such as horse racing, soccer, NFL and NBA.
