UKGC to investigate after Sky Vegas sends marketing material to excluded gamblers
Casino brand apologises after mistakenly flooding hundreds of inboxes with mystery bonus offer
The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) has pledged to “look into” a marketing breach by Sky Vegas that saw self-excluded customers bombarded with offers during Safer Gambling Week.
Hundreds of users have taken to Twitter to complain after receiving an email from the Sky Betting & Gaming online casino brand, which asked them to “take a peek” at their “mystery bonus”.
Some users were even contacted with the offer despite being self-excluded, both with the Sky Vegas brand and for all UK-licensed gambling sites via the GAMSTOP self-exclusion register.
Sky Vegas is aware of the issue and offered an apology to the affected individuals via Twitter and parent company Flutter Entertainment said the same in a statement provided to EGR.
“We sincerely apologise to those who have mistakenly received Sky Vegas promotional communications and for the distress this may have caused some recipients,” said the firm.
“We are treating this matter extremely seriously and are thoroughly investigating how this happened as a matter of urgency.”
We’ve been made aware by members of the public that @SkyBet have sent promotional emails to self-excluded customers yesterday. We do not expect this of our operators and we will be looking into how this has happened. pic.twitter.com/ikquXWWALD
— Gambling Commission (@GamRegGB) November 3, 2021
The UKGC said it had been made aware of the breach by members of the public. “We do not expect this of our operators and will be looking into how this has happened,” said the regulator.
It is a breach of the UKGC’s social responsibility codes if an operator fails to demonstrate that all reasonable steps have been taken to prevent marketing material from being sent to self-excluded customers.