Paddy Power and Betfair to pay £2m settlement after failing to protect users
Paddy Power and Betfair have reached a £2m settlement with the gambling industry regulator over social responsibility failings, including allowing one customer to bet for nearly eight hours solid.The Gambling Commission said the online betting and gaming brands, which are owned by Flutter Entertainment, had fallen “far short” of what was expected during a routine compliance assessment performed in 2024.Systems that were supposed to detect early indicators that gamblers may be experiencing harm and trigger checks on their wellbeing were found to have been insufficiently sensitive, resulting in late intervention.Failings identified by the Gambling Commission included one customer being allowed to stake £86,000 over a 16-day period, during which time they lost £6,000.“Despite the high velocity of spend, no manual review of the account took place,” the regulator said.
In another case, a gambler displayed “concerning behaviour in terms of intense spikes of activity” in their betting over a 17-day period without any intervention to check on their spending,During that period, their longest session lasted seven hours and 46 minutes, during which they placed 300 bets amounting to £20,000, more than £2,500 an hour,The account was only reviewed after the gambler hit a threshold triggered automatically by a certain degree of losses,The £2m settlement agreed between Flutter and the Gambling Commission is equivalent to slightly less than two hours worth of takings for the company, which is listed in London and New York and reported revenue of £10,5bn last year.
It is the company’s second fine in three years.It paid £490,000 in 2023 after accidentally sending promotional push notification to customers who had signed up to exclude themselves from gambling, inviting them to bet on a football match.John Pierce, the Gambling Commission’s director of enforcement, said the fine reflected “the seriousness of the failings identified and the importance of meeting social responsibility and customer interaction standards”.“Our compliance assessment in 2024 uncovered examples where interactions fell far short of what is required.These failings should never have occurred,” he added.
“While the licensees cooperated fully with the investigation, accepted the failings early, and implemented an action plan quickly, this immediate response is the minimum we expect from operators when serious shortcomings are identified.”A spokesperson for Flutter said the company took its safer gambling responsibilities seriously and firmly believed it led the industry in player protection.“Customer safety is our number one priority and there is no suggestion that any of the customers reviewed by the Gambling Commission experienced any harm,” they said.“Our controls have evolved significantly and we recently introduced a next-generation customer safety platform, with the vast majority of checks now happening in real-time.“As such, we are confident that the issues highlighted by the commission in its public statement would not be repeated today.
We continue to invest in our technology and our people to raise standards in the regulated industry.”
George Osborne joins OpenAI: ex-chancellor adds tech post to his CV
The former UK chancellor George Osborne is joining OpenAI to lead the ChatGPT developer’s relationships with governments around the world.He will head a division known internally as OpenAI for Countries, through which the San Francisco artificial intelligence startup works with governments on national-level AI rollouts.The former Conservative politician will add the role to his growing portfolio of positions which include: chair of the British Museum; adviser to the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase; and host of a podcast with the former Labour minister Ed Balls.Osborne is moving on from his role as senior managing director at Evercore, which acquired the investment bank Robey Warshaw in July where he was partner, and will be based in London rather than Silicon Valley.His hiring by OpenAI is the latest sign the big US tech firms are becoming increasingly focused on boosting AI adoption by national governments
Deals put UK-US trade relationship in the spotlight | Letters
Far from costing British lives, as Aditya Chakrabortty suggests (What will be the cost of Keir Starmer’s new medicines deal with Donald Trump? British lives, 11 December), the UK-US medicines agreement is designed to support NHS patients by improving access to new and innovative treatments.The agreement raises the baseline threshold used by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence to assess the cost-effectiveness for new medicines, enabling more treatments to be considered for NHS use.It does not retrospectively increase the price of existing branded medicines. It also caps repayment rates for newer medicines at no more than 15% from 2026 to 2028, replacing an unpredictable system that has hampered investment and patient access to cutting-edge treatments.The UK has fallen behind international competitors in both life sciences investment and access to innovative medicines
Ministers ‘break word’ on protecting nature after weakening biodiversity planning rule
The government has broken its promise to protect nature by weakening planning rules for housing developers, groups have said.While developers once had to create “biodiversity net gain” (BNG), meaning creating 10% more space for nature on site than there was before the building took place, the housing minister Matthew Pennycook announced exemptions to this rule on Tuesday.Under the new rules developments under 0.2 hectares are exempted from the policy. Analysis from the Wildlife Trusts has found that this means a combined area across England the size of Windsor forest will now not be restored for nature
UK politics: Employment rights bill set to become law after Lords backing – as it happened
The House of Lords has passed the employment rights bill. Last week Tory and cross-bench peers defeated the government over one aspect of the bill – a last-minute addition lifting the cap on compensation paid to people who win a case for unfair dismissal – but that defeat was overturned on Monday and this afternoon peers debated the bill again. This time the Tories and cross-benchers dropped their opposition to the measure, and the bill as agreed by the Commons was approved without a division.That means it will now get royal assent very shortly.Lord Sharpe of Epsom, the Conservative spokesperson, told peers that a letter from business groups released by the government yesterday, in which the business groups urged peers to pass the bill, showed that ministers had “misrepresented” the compromise deal unveiled last month
Penitent Tice tussles with The Unbearable Lightness of His Being | John Crace
Call it a Christmas miracle. For this was the day when Richard Tice sent in his application to become a fully paid-up member of Woke. The day the Reform deputy leader tried to break free from his role as the perennial sidekick. An insignificant blot on the Nigel Farage landscape. When he tried to show he was able to think his own thoughts
How far must UK go to fend off threat of foreign interference in its elections?
Russia has been attempting to meddle with western democracy for years, but successive governments led by Boris Johnson and others have insisted that the UK’s electoral system can withstand its influence.That argument was recently blown apart by the conviction of former Reform politician Nathan Gill, jailed for 10 years for accepting bribes to advance Russian arguments.And now Steve Reed, the cabinet minister responsible for elections, has admitted there are worries that the UK’s “firewall” against foreign interference may not be strong enough as he ordered an independent review.The decision is clearly partly motivated by the chance to score political points against Reform UK over its links to the Russian bribe case. And yet there is no doubting the reality of the threat, even if it has until recently been ignored
Caesareans overtake natural vaginal births in England for first time, NHS data finds
Resident doctors in England begin five days of strike action
The Guardian’s Hope appeal raises more than £350,000 for charities
Adults in England with eating disorders wait up to 700 days for treatment, report finds
Wes Streeting and resident doctors urged to agree to mediation to end strikes
Striking resident doctors are digging in. History suggests this will go on and on