Will have to pay £490,000 for sending promotional push notifications to devices linked to its own excluded customers.
The Operator app distributed improved betting odds on English Premier League football matches to devices linked to GAMSTOP (opened on a new tab) registered accounts or to licensing contractors linked to their own excluded accounts.
This action violates the Commission’s regulations that require gambling operators to take all reasonable measures to prevent marketing materials from being sent to self-exclusion customers and to remove the names and details of self-exclusion individuals from the marketing database within two days of receiving the self-exclusion notice.
“Although there is no evidence that marketing was intentional, that everyone who uses the app has seen the notification, or that self-excluded customers are allowed to gamble, we take such violations seriously,” said Kay Roberts, the Gambling Commission’s director of operations. “We will advise all operators to learn from operator failures and ensure their systems are robust enough to ensure that self-excluded customers do not send promotional materials.”