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Bet365’s Hillside gaming and sports-betting units have been assessed a total of 79m Swedish krona (€6.95m) by the Swedish Gambling Authority (SGA) for failures in duty of care for players, with violations including not responding quickly enough to problematic gambling.
Hillside Gaming received a warning and fine of SEK14m for violations, while Hillside Sports got a warning and fine of SEK65m, the SGA said today (April 27).
The fines are the second announced today on UK-based operators, with the regulator earlier having announced a warning and SEK4m fine for Flutter Entertainment’s Betfair unit, for improperly offering bets on a lower-level football division.
Hillside was rebuked for letting players gamble without asking them to set daily, weekly and monthly deposit limits as required, and for not working proactively in cases where the players were displaying problematic behaviour, the regulator wrote.
“In general, it has taken too long before the two companies took measures to prevent continued risky gambling”, the authority said.
The investigation of Hillside Sports started after the authority requested details on the 10 biggest losers between October 17 and December 17 in 2021, and zeroed in on five of them, the SGA said.
Of the 10, six missed setting one or more of the required deposit limits and four missed setting boundaries completely, the authority said.
Hillside also did not pay special attention to players who either set high limits or none at all, thus failing in carrying out a duty of care as required, the SGA said.
All the players that the regulator audited displayed gambling habits which “can be considered excessive”, including gambling almost every day, and Hillside did not adequately respond in order to reduce their risks, the regulator said.
The company’s original action plan also did not adequately consider additional risks for young players and those that had been on self-exclusion lists, the authority said.
In response, Hillside claimed it undertook full risk assessments for young players and those who had been on self-exclusion lists, in line with what it believed to be the authority’s guidance at the time.
Until April 2022, it allowed players to choose an option of “no limit”, but that option nonetheless carried an upper limit of SEK500m, the company said.
From that April, it required fixed deposit limits from customers, the company said.
It has also changed its action plans to more carefully review players who display risky behaviour, especially younger ones.
“Hillside Sports particularly wants to draw the attention of the Swedish Gambling Authority to the fact that Hillside Sports denies that the company has not fulfilled the duty of care, but as a responsible licensee, they are keen to cooperate with the authority”, the company wrote.
