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British gambling company William Hill has been hit by a record £19.2m fine by the UK gambling regulator. Three gambling businesses owned by the company will pay the sum for "widespread and alarming" social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures, the Gambling Commission said. The entities who will pay the fines will be WHG (International) Limited, which runs williamhill.com and will pay £12.5m - Mr Green Limited, which runs mrgreen.com, which will pay £3.7m; and William Hill Organisation Limited, which operates 1,344 gambling premises across Britain and will pay £3m. Latest figures show parent company 888 reported £1.85bn in revenue for the year up to the end of December 2022, company profits for the year will be published in April. Failures identified by the regulator included allowing a customer to open a new account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes, all without any checks. Another social responsibility failure identified was failing to conduct any checks and allowing a different customer to open an account and spend £18,000 in 24 hours. A third customer was able to spend £32,500 over two days, also without any checks. Due to "ineffective controls" 331 customers were able to gamble with WHG (International) Limited despite having self-excluded themselves with Mr Green. Anti-money laundering failures allowed customers to deposit large sums without appropriate checks. Sums deposited were as high as £70,134, which one customer spent and lost in a month. Another lost £38,000 in five weeks while a third lost £36,000 in four days. A licence suspension was considered, Gambling Commission chief executive said. "When we launched this investigation the failings we uncovered were so widespread and alarming serious consideration was given to licence suspension," Andrew Rhodes said. "However, because the operator immediately recognised their failings and worked with us to swiftly implement improvements, we instead opted for the largest enforcement payment in our history." A spokesperson for William Hill parent company 888 said: "The settlement relates to the period when William Hill was under the previous ownership and management." "After William Hill was acquired, the company quickly addressed the identified issues with the implementation of a rigorous action plan." The company was purchased by 888 from Caesar's Entertainment in July 2022. "The entire group shares the [Gambling Commission's] commitment to improve compliance standards across the industry and we will continue to work collaboratively with the regulator and other stakeholders to achieve this." Cite

Are the government in bed with vested interest of the multinationals ?? If they are then no amount and of wrongdoing will prevent the continuance of 888 and similar companies from doing as they please , just as every other multinational company does when coupled with our toothless vacuous selfish narrow bigoted politicians ....... Look at the water companies , foreign owned and dumping 824 spillages of raw untreated sewage into our rivers every day !!!! CAN YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE ???

I love the way these companies say that it was before William Hill was taken over by 888. The failings were still there which is why they got such a big fine and nearly lost their licence. 888 are an awful company to deal with as a customer as well. At the end of the day 19 million although a lot of money is peanuts in terms of the value of the group. Hills was sold for 2.2 billion It is about time when the breach is that serious they are fined up to 10 per cent of turnover like they do with the monopolies.

It's been a while since I hit anything semi good. Never heard of this, anyone know who the provider is? Hacksaw perhaps!

Got drawn into this race after having a lookover the ante-post market and thot I'd have a little play. Eight line up and I was holding off until the jockey's were confirmed but it wasn't much of a puzzle predicting who is riding what, these races are tricky as with some of the field not been racing in over 100 days is a bit of a lucky punt in itself, I have put a decent bit of study time into the race but as we all know that guarantees nothing, I often work backwards in these type of races so I've ruled out the two biggest priced runners reducing the field down to Six, if you fancy one of the bigger priced two then by all means don't allow my opinion to sway you. 1st Choice would be the obvious one, the boys in Blue owned 4yr old gelding and trained by Charlie Appleby, he's out of Dubawi so he's as tough as teak and still has very low miles on the clock, he was 2nd on his debut at HQ which is an easy race to remember as I backed him that day, he then won his next four - one of them being at Royal Ascot then he followed up after that at Glorious Goodwood, he was then 2nd at York and finished off the year running in a race that was clearly a step too far for him running over 1m 6f but he still ran with a lot of heart finishing 6th The boys in blue are renowned for sending some of their stock over to Dubai for a well earned rest over the cold winter months and getting some heat into them, I've done a bit of looking around but can't find any rock solid evidence on this, when we get a look at the selection on race day it will be very clear by his coat if he's been in the sun over in Dubai and if he has I see him being really hard to beat, he's not a flashy horse but he does possess a decent engine, I do however have a couple of doubts over him and that's what's prevented me going in silly stakes bet, he's never won on AW track and his race fitness is a total unknown, the boys in blue horses can be anything at times but I've never really been put off by horses making their debuts or if they haven't been seen for a few months, again his coat on Saturday will provide a better picture if he's been away on holiday in Dubai so you may want to hold fire ''Unlike me'' The Danger It was the Winter Derby back on 25th February with Andrew Balding's 5yr old gelding running a blinder, now the gelding hadn't been racing since August 2022 and watching the Winter Derby back he came from a wide draw and ran wide 85% of the full race, he was never beating John Gosden's well thot after Lord North but when he got into top gear in the home straight he finished very well, he finished 3rd in the winter derby but he'd defo have finished a lot closer had his draw been a bit kinder and not had to run wide for so long. Rob Hornby was riding that day and didn't really do much wrong BUT the fella has the services of Oisin Murphy on Saturday so things ''might be'' a bit better, he does look a bit lazy and require a bit of stoking up but Oisin has rode him before and will know exactly when to start flinging coal on the fire. Tricky race but Two good horses with Two good Pilots. Race time 14:05 Track - Kempton Jockey Bookings - William Buick & Oisin Murphy Selections - Secret State @ 2/1 - The Danger Foxes Tales @ 6/1 BOG

Scotland v Spain. Spain -1 15/8

The fine is a drop in the ocean. It would have been more appropriate to hit them hard with a licence suspension but we all know its unlikely that would ever happen. Where does the money these companies are fined actually go? I agree with Phil re 888. I must have self excluded with them about 6 times and every time they allowed me to reopen the account without question other than signing a disclaimer just to cover themselves. The failures that hackz mentioned are bad. It must be so easy for them to immediately be notified of excess deposits over a short period of time. They failed badly, but I would say with the fine they will probably consider that to a certain extent they got away with it.

@blacko wondering how to hit Madrid if Spain do not pull their finger out !

I dont play a lot of poker these days even tho I was playing 12hours+ daily years ago to make my . I dont usually post about poker but since I want stop playing so much slots and actually go back into poker more I might as well.

Never been the biggest fan of Hills Never had a bet refused and I only ever visit a walk in shop if I can't get a certain price someplace else A last resort kind of visit My area used to have 3 shops all very near each other, the manager in the one I preferred was always shocking, a very strange deep fella who really did look right through you, he'd always come into the Local Ladjokes on his break and play the FOBT, he really was a bit strange. Mind getting a really good win on a horse a few years back and the bet was placed in weird managers shop, I went in to collect the win 2 days after the race, the 2nd I walked through the door it's like he was watching the door purely for me lol - but he just pointed at me while shouting NO GET OUT, followed by ........Ask another Hills for the money! I really thot about sending a complaint as I've never had that treatment in my life, he was also informing a shop of my personal business which I felt was mega unprofessional, one of the shops has since closed but Ironically it was a shop Id never been in ever, not once! Never really liked the layout of Hills shops, same with Corals, always felt prices at Corals were usually piss poor, the worst of the bunch. .

Watch Spain win 1-0 now to screw you both!

Scotland win or draw it is then

It’s like saying Footballer gets fined weeks wages

Corruption to some degree is everywhere when so much money is involved as you said.

The world has changed now as have many of TGC's members Look at the change in @Blampy & @MrUKHackz . .

Knew it, @Blacko proper cursed it in there

Hope ole Blacko didn't do it

Just about enough

Thanks mate. Im sure you have a ton of to skin.

Nice one mate , come and donate a bit to us cash game grinders

Most of the good ones are in my head The bad ones are in a Jug lol

A few days later was also pretty special Prefer a good pal tae tell the story https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/results/2013-10-17/brighton/128372/32red-casino-handicap

@Jok3st3r Jog any memories ? https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/results/2021-08-07/haydock/640746/mansionbet-rose-of-lancaster-stakes-group-3

Nice, never in doubt by the looks. He probably threw you out as embarrassed that he couldn't count as high as your winnings

@david1111 That was the horse 2013 I was on at 7/1 https://www.sportinglife.com/racing/results/2013-10-08/brighton/127898/union-events-handicap-div-2

Foxes Tales Finish in Winter Derby

@Bangers not sure how I would have reacted to that. I'd probably be too shocked to say anything. Very strange, was he on some sort of shop profit bonus. I guess I would have just collected somewhere else and never gone back

Excellent Post as per usual fella

That looks a good bet

I'm always dubious about these sorts of fines as you can guarantee the pen pushing regulators will no doubt cream off their cut.

Get in! Love to see it!

@Mad Slasher McGurk

I never thought a Major on these coin link slots could actually land online! $1.50 Stake, $1000 Win more of a holyf*** they can actually do something, moment. :)

Scotland to win and John McGinn to have over 0.5 shots on target superboost on Bet365 to evens

Of course Scotland are winning!