The biggest UK bookmaker penalties: William Hill £19.2m, Entain £17m, and Platinum Gaming / Unibet £10m

The UK Gambling Commission has turned financial penalties into one of its main enforcement tools, and the numbers at the top of the list are large enough to get everyone in payments and risk management to stop and read the fine print. For PSPs, acquirers, and banks serving gambling merchants, these cases show exactly where the regulator looks first: AML controls, KYC, affordability checks, self-exclusion handling, and customer due diligence.

1. William Hill Group — £19.2m
   In 2023, the William Hill Group was hit with regulatory penalties on three fronts tied to anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures. WHG (International) Limited, which operates William Hill Online, settled for £12.5m with the Commission, while online casino Mr Green received a £3.7m penalty and William Hill Organisation Ltd was reprimanded with £3m.
2. In some cases, customers were able to spend thousands in under half an hour without player protection or KYC (know your customer) mechanisms kicking in. In other cases, bettors who had self-excluded from Mr Green were still able to bet with William Hill. The Commission also found that credit limits were increased before the mandatory 24-hour cooling-off period from the time of request had passed.
3. Retail controls were also weak. One customer was only approached after putting £18,000 towards a bet, which the Commission treated as part of a broader pattern of customer due diligence and AML failures. The combined penalty of £19.2m has not been beaten since, although it has come close on several occasions.
4. Entain — £17m
   Before William Hill took the top spot, Entain held the record. In 2022, it agreed to a £17m settlement covering online and retail failures. The larger £14m sanction went to LC International, the subsidiary handling Entain’s online business, while the Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming retail division received a £3m penalty.
5. The Gambling Commission said Entain had failed to conduct proper due diligence when a customer deposited £230,000 over 18 months, with the operator contacting them only once during that period. It also said staff at several Ladbrokes retail locations failed in their duty of care, including one case involving a delivery driver who lost £17,000 in one year without the issue being escalated into a problem gambling case.
6. Platinum Gaming / Unibet — £10m
   Platinum Gaming, the operator behind Unibet and Bingo.com, ranks third on the list of the biggest penalties issued by the UK regulator. In October 2025, Commission Director of Enforcement John Pierce described the company’s customer protection failures as “disappointing.”
7. According to the Gambling Commission, a number of new players suffered significant losses over a period of hours or days after creating accounts. For high-risk payment providers, that is the practical point: the enforcement risk is not abstract, it sits exactly at the intersection of onboarding, transaction monitoring, affordability, and customer intervention.

The pattern here is consistent. The Commission is not only looking at whether a merchant can process payments; it is looking at whether the operator can explain the source of funds, identify harmful play, respect exclusions, and intervene quickly enough to avoid a regulatory bill.