The UK Gambling Commission has announced that it has fined PPB Counterparty Services Limited, trading as Paddy Power and Betfair, £490,000 (€565,132) for sending push notifications to devices of self-excluding customers.
Following an investigation, the commission found that on November 21st, 2021, the Paddy Power mobile app sent an offer of enhanced odds for an English Premier League match. These promotions were sent to the operator’s customers who had voluntarily self-excluded from gambling through GAMSTOP or the license holder’s self-exclusion program.
According to the commission, this was a clear failing of the company’s social responsibilities and therefore a breach of its licensing conditions. UK gambling regulations state that gambling businesses must take all reasonable steps to prevent any marketing material being sent to a self-excluded customer. The customer’s name and details must also be fully removed from any marketing databases within two days of receiving the completed self-exclusion notification.
Kay Roberts, Gambling Commission Executive Director of Operations, said:
“Although there is no evidence the marketing was intentional, nor that all the people with apps saw the notification or that self-excluded customers were allowed to gamble, we take such breaches seriously.
We would advise all operators to learn from the operator’s failures and ensure their systems are robust enough to always prevent self-excluded customers from being sent promotional material.”
This brings the total fines for 2023 to more than £50,721,772 (€58,497,538). Gambling industry sanctions and fines in 2022 came to €251,712,034 / $269,532,490 – a significant increase of 443.9% compared to 2021’s total of €44,753,969 / $48,642,992.