Richard Flint's response to the financial penalty in full
Sky Bet's CEO says he "fully agrees" with the Commission's findings and pledges to increase investment in problem gambling resources
“We have always taken responsible gambling and player protection very seriously but this incident showed that we needed to do more.
When we spotted the issue we pro-actively notified the Gambling Commission and have worked to improve our processes to avoid this happening again.
We could and should have made it harder for self-excluded customers to open duplicate accounts with us and for that we are sorry.
We fully agree with the Gambling Commission’s findings and will donate the agreed sum to charities for socially responsible purposes.
Sky Betting & Gaming CEO, Richard Flint
We want to reassure people that we have not made any profit out of this episode.
In relation to account balances, wherever possible and practical we have returned the money to the people involved.
Since this incident we have further increased our resources and focus on helping our customers to gamble safely.
We have initiated a major TV and online campaign promoting, amongst other things, limits that customers can set to control their own gambling. And we have a team of 60 people monitoring accounts for unusual behaviour.
We aim to further improve through collaboration across the industry, with the Gambling Commission, and with relevant experts on responsible gambling.”