So in 2019 Ladbrokes Coral got fined for failings in money laundering and safer gambling.
2022 they were hit with a record fine for falling foul of the rules for a second time and not making gambling safer and crime free.
They had additional licence conditions imposed on them and an improvement plan was put into place which should have prevented any repeats of the serious failings that had been carried out by them.
I have recently been victim to a self exclusion breach my Ladbrokes (no process circumvented and same details used) where they allowed registration of a new account when they had just confirmed on live chat that I was self excluded so my old account would not be opened and I should register a new one, They also confirmed I was SE at another firm which is within their group.
When I looked into this, when I SE from the foxy brand last year, the account closure should have been applied across their entire Entain Group but wasn’t.
In 2020 I then discover that I had an account with BETDAQ (part of the Ladbrokes Group at the time) who had contacted me to say that an account issue had meant that I had been allowed to deposit more than I should have and so were issuing me a refund. Came out the blue but was obviously a welcomed gesture.
I outline to the agent by email that I have problems, gamble too much, too often and have an addiction. This prompts him to close the BETDAQ account instant due to the concerns he had. If he had such serious concerns, would it be reasonable to assume he should have applied the action to the other brands within the group?
I then state that the deposit limits should be a cumulative amount across the whole group rather than individual limits for each site. Obviously this would limit depositing limits and I confirmed that this process is in place at other groups. I specifically list "your sister companies which include gala spins, gala bingo, gala casino and coral". The agent confirms my email was passed to the compliance team who would come back to me in due course. They did not respond to my point raised related to safer gambling.
My question being, if BETDAQ in 2020 and or Foxy in 2023 had acted on the information available to them (in knowledge of a vulnerable addicted Customer) under safe gambling is it the case that the SE should have been applied to all accounts under the same group. If the information is available on the system so much so that they can confirm SE are active at sister casinos, my understanding is that it should be applied across their entire brands.
I have SE with other groups previously and that has always seen that the exclusion has carried over their entire group so I believe it is what should happen.
When Ladbrokes Coral were fined in 2022 this would have been for safer gambling failings likely taking place in 2020 when they failed to act on my comments and protect me.
Allowing a known vulnerable and self excluded customer (in fact instructing me to) to open an account can only be a failing under safer gambling. When I’ve put the matter to Ladbrokes they haven’t commented on the matter at all, seems that they are under instructions to avoid any complaints made that relate to safe gambling to avoid the possibility of anyone admitting any from doing on Ladbrokes part and leaving them exposed again.
In terms of their clear failings to me in 2020, 2023 and 2024 and them being fined and likely having to compensate any affected customers, is there a way that I can make a claim against their misconduct in 2020 breaching safer gambling, and seek compensation for any deposits that I have been allowed to make from the point of the account closure up to the point of being self excluded from the Entain group this week. Would I have case to be compensated using the court case in 2020 as a basis for being refunded for all deposits made to any company under the group?