The UK gambling sector has faced growing regulatory scrutiny in recent years, with the Gambling Commission tightening its oversight of licensing duties and regulatory compliance. Financial penalties remain a prominent lever to hold operators accountable for their actions.
SBC News examines some of the biggest gambling penalties issued in the UK, highlighting the operators involved and what led to the imposed penalties that are continuing to shape the UK’s regulatory landscape.
William Hill – £19.2m
In 2023, the William Hill Group got hit with regulatory penalties on three different fronts, related to anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures.
WHG (International) Limited, operator of William Hill Online, had to settle for £12.5m with the Commission, making up the largest share of the total amount. Online casino Mr Green came in second with a £3.7m penalty, while William Hill Organisation Ltd was reprimanded with £3m.
In certain instances, customers were able to spend thousands in under half an hour without any player protection or KYC mechanisms kicking in. Elsewhere, bettors who were self-excluded from Mr Green were still able to bet with William Hill.
Increases in credit limits were also granted prior to the passing of the mandatory 24-hour cooling off period from the time of the request.
Customer due diligence was similarly lacking across retail, where a player was approached only after putting £18,000 towards a bet. All the above also constituted severe AML failures.
The combined penalty amount equaled £19.2m, which hasn’t been beaten since, although it came close on several occasions.
Entain – £17m
Before William Hill, it was Entain, which in 2022 was issued what was the largest penalty at that point, totaling £17m as a settlement for online- and retail-related failures.
The more substantial £14m sanction was issued to subsidiary LC International, which handled Entain’s online presence. Meanwhile, the retail Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming division was hit with a £3m penalty.
Details around the Commission’s investigation highlighted that Entain failed to conduct proper due diligence when a customer deposited £230,000 over 18 months, with the operator approaching them only once throughout the period.
Meanwhile, the regulator claimed that staff at a number of Ladbrokes retail locations were also negligent with their duty of care. One instance involved a delivery driver who lost £17,000 in one year, without being escalated into a problem gambling case.
Platinum Gaming / Unibet – £10m
Platinum Gaming ranks third in the top three biggest penalties issued by the UK gambling regulator.
In October 2025, the Unibet/Bingo.com operator was accused by Commission Director of Enforcement, John Pierce, of “disappointing failures” relating to customer protection.
According to the gambling authority, a number of new players experienced significant losses over a period of hours or days since creating their accounts without any restrictions or harm prevention measures kicking in.
“While industry wide progress has been made in reducing unchecked high spending, the failings at Platinum Gaming are particularly disappointing,” Pierce then said.
“The case revealed serious shortcomings in customer interaction systems, including failures to identify and act on clear markers of harm.”
evoke – £9.4m
Next on the list is evoke, which at the time when it was issued a penalty of £9.4m by the Commission in 2022 was still known as 888 Holdings.
Following an investigation, 888 was found to have breached a number of its compliance duties relating to anti-money laundering and social responsibility practices.
The regulator highlighted that 888 had adopted a policy that “allowed customers to deposit £40,000 before carrying out a source-of-fund check”. This led to one customer depositing more than £65,000 over a five-month period without filling in any proof-of-fund documentation.
Another serious compliance breach constituted by the Commission was the operator’s failure to provide sufficient evidence that it acted proactively in cases marked as social responsibility concerns.
Kindred – £7.1m
While Platinum Gaming was part of French conglomerate FDJ United when it was hit with the £10m penalty in 2025, it was still under Kindred Group’s (now also FDJ-owned) control in 2023.
This was also when Platinum, together with 32Red (another Kindred subsidiary at the time) were penalised with a combined total of £7.1m, making it the fifth largest financial penalty in the UK during the 2020s.
Platinum’s actions that brought it a £2.9m penalty, according to the regulator, were failure to recognise that multiple accounts on its platform were held by one user, allowing access to self-excluded customers, and not engaging with players exhibiting problem gambling signs.
On the other hand, 32Red was handed a £4.2m penalty due to its proof-of-funds triggers being too high, and allowing customers subjected to these checks to continue playing.
Then-Executive Director of the Commission, Kay Roberts, commented: “These failures highlight clearly that both operators failed to interact with customers in a way which minimises the risk of them experiencing harms associated with gambling.”
In Touch Games – £6.1m
In Touch Games ranks sixth in terms of the amount of money it had to pay the Commission at once, but if we count the 2019 penalty (£2.2m) and the one from 2021 (£3.4m), it will certainly climb the ranks.
The third and final time it got penalised before effectively being stripped of its iGaming licence was in 2023, when the regulator charged it a total of £6.1m for social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
An investigation by the gambling authority showed that it took seven weeks for the operator to finally approach a customer who has been exhibiting “erratic” patterns during their playing sessions. Another customer’s word that they earn £6,000 a month was taken at heart without any proof of evidence.
The regulator also accused In Touch Games of failing to recognise that one customer was a beneficiary of a life insurance policy, while others were or had relations to politically exposed persons.
Gamesys – £6m
Gamesys took a £6m penalty in January 2024 following a regulatory investigation into customer responsibility and AML controls across 16 of its websites.
Findings constituted an insufficient system of identifying customers at-risk of gambling harm and poor engagement with those who were flagged, as well as weak AML triggers that were easily circumvented by customers.
“One customer deposited £14,585 in 28 weeks, another £18,884 in over six months, and a third £34,280 in five and a half months,” the Commission said at the time.
TGP Europe – £3m
Now-notorious white label operator TGP Europe was forced out of the UK market following a £3m AML penalty and a licence suspension by the Commission in 2025, taking more than a dozen domains with it.
Readers will be familiar with the Asia-focused betting firms that TGP Europe brought into the UK, mainly due to their highly visible partnerships with Premier League clubs.
These included DEBET (Wolverhampton Wanderers FC), SBOTOP (Fulham FC), Sportsbetio (Newcastle United), and bj88 (AFC Bournemouth), among others.
It also operated the UK domain for Stake, which had embarked on an infamous social media marketing spree prior to the Commission’s action.
TGP Europe’s business was a large catalyst for the debates around offshore gambling providers in UK sports that intensified following its departure.
The Commission has since been in active talks with licensed operators to devise strategies around limiting and prohibiting sports teams from entering partnerships with gambling firms that do not hold a valid UK licence.