“However, because the operator immediately recognised their failings and worked with us to swiftly implement improvements, we instead opted for the largest enforcement payment in our history.” The Gambling Commission chief executive, Andrew Rhodes, said: “When we launched this investigation the failings we uncovered were so widespread and alarming serious consideration was given to licence suspension. The firm also failed to apply a 24-hour delay between receiving a request for an increase in a credit limit and granting it: one customer was allowed to immediately place a £100,000 bet when his credit limit had been set at £70,000. William Hill was also found to have failed to identify risk of harm or intervene with certain customers earlier enough – one lost £54,252 in four weeks without the operator seeking income evidence or carrying out adequate checks.

The commission said the company failed to carry out checks at an early stage in the customer’s journey, which meant one user lost £14,902 in 70 minutes. They included allowing one customer to open a new account and spend £23,000 in 20 minutes allowing another to open an account and spend £18,000 in 24 hours and allowing a third customer to spend £32,500 over two days – all without any checks.

The failures at William Hill’s brand that have led to the new record penalty continued for at least a year after that. Mr Green, William Hill and 888 have incurred significant fines from the Gambling Commission in recent years, including a £3m fine for Mr Green handed down in February 2020. The commission has never suspended the licence of a big operator, although it has the power to do so in response to repeated transgressions. The regulator said it had considered suspending William Hill’s licence but this was avoided after the company worked rapidly to make changes. The previous largest fine was £17m imposed last August on Entain, the gambling firm behind Ladbrokes and Coral. William Hill and its sister brand Mr Green will pay a total of £19.2m, which is the largest penalty in the commission’s history but equates to less than four days of revenue for their parent company, 888, which won £1.8bn from punters last year. The Guardian understands that the “write round” process, where government departments approve the reforms, will begin this week, with a white paper due to be published in April. The failures also continued after the government launched a landmark review of gambling laws that has led the industry to promise to improve safety standards.

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