Betfred owners fined £322,000 for checking failures over stolen money

The Gibraltar-based owners of Betfred have been stung with a £322,000 penalty for failing to adequately carry out checks on a customer who deposited £210,000 of stolen money.

Petfre Limited, which trades as Betfred, will make the payment following an investigation by the Gambling Commission, which discovered the operator did not apply the appropriate scrutiny of the customer, who lost £140,000 of the deposited sum in a 12-day period in November 2017.

A statement from the regulator on Thursday morning read: "A customer being able to deposit and lose such significant amounts in such a short period of time clearly indicated failings in the effectiveness of Petfre's anti-money laundering policies and procedures."

As part of the settlement, Petfre will return £140,000 to the victim and pay a fine of £182,000, which will go towards the Gambling Commission's strategy to reduce problem gambling and the harm it causes.

Betfred are the well-known high street and online firm founded in 1967 by Fred Done, who oversees one of Britain's biggest bookmakers.

They are the latest company to be punished by the Gambling Commission, which this year hit GVC Holdings, the owners of Ladbrokes Coral, with a £5.9 million penalty for failing to protect vulnerable customers, while William Hill were last year handed a £6.2m fine for breaching anti-money laundering and social responsibility regulations.

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