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Betway will pay a £409,000 penalty for marketing on the children’s section of West Ham United football club’s website, the UK’s Gambling Commission has announced.
Between April 14, 2020 and November 6, 2021, the online gambling company’s logo, which linked to its website, was displayed on a web page offering the chance to print a teddy bear for children to colour in, the regulator said today (September 21).
The commission also found a logo with a link to the operator’s website on the "Young Hammers at Home" web page between October 24, 2021 and November 15, 2021, it said.
The advertisements violated commission rules that marketing must be socially responsible.
“Although there is no suggestion that the operator was deliberately targeting children, or that children had been allowed to gamble, we take the breach of any rules aimed at protecting children extremely seriously,” said Leanne Oxley, the commission’s director of enforcement.
“We note the remedial actions since taken by licensee, but advise all operators to learn from this case and ensure that they take responsibility and have the correct processes in place so that websites directed at children do not include advertisements for gambling,” she said.
In March 2020, Betway paid an £11.6m settlement penalty after the commission found a series of inadequate anti-money laundering and social responsibility processes, along with sub-standard senior management oversight.
In the UK, the Malta-based operator has websites under names including Betway, Best of the Best Online Casino, Dream Bingo and Hippodrome Online.
In February, the company was reprimanded by the Swedish Gambling Authority for negative equity at its operating unit there, and it must fix its problems by the end of the year or face not having its licence renewed.
Betway is a unit of New York Stock Exchange-listed Super Group.
Shares closed on Tuesday at $4.05, down 59.3 percent over the past 12 months.
In its second quarter, Super Group reported that so-called adjusted EBITDA fell 36 percent on a decline of 7 percent to €316m in net gaming revenue, due to declines in Canada and in German online casino, and having had to pull out of the Dutch market.
