Entain Fined £632 Million Making It UK’s Second Biggest Offender

Entain PLC, one of the biggest names in sports betting and gambling, has found itself near the top of the UK’s corporate fines list. A new study from risk management specialists Protecht, which analysed more than 36,000 fines issued between 2020 and 2024, revealed that Entain has been fined a staggering £632 million across four offences during that period. Only Airbus, penalised over £1 billion, recorded higher losses.

Good to Know

• Entain paid one of the largest fines of the decade in 2023, totalling £615 million.
• The company’s average penalty per offence was £158 million.
• Nearly all sports betting industry fines in the UK since 2020 have been paid by Entain.

The biggest blow came in 2023, when HMRC fined Entain £585 million in penalties and profit disgorgement linked to alleged bribery failures at its former Turkish operations. As part of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement, Entain also agreed to donate £20 million to charity and cover £10 million in costs.

A year earlier, in 2022, the UK Gambling Commission imposed a £17 million fine after finding weaknesses in Entain’s anti-money laundering and player protection systems. The regulator flagged issues across both its online platforms—such as Ladbrokes, Coral, and Foxy Bingo—and in physical betting shops.

Entain has also been penalised twice for labour standards violations, though these were much smaller in scale, totalling just over £23,000. Still, when combined with the larger cases, the group ranks second among all UK companies for total fines issued between 2020 and 2024.

The Protecht study showed that sports betting was the fourth most heavily fined industry in the UK during the period, with £633 million in penalties overall. Almost the entire amount came from Entain. By contrast, industries such as aerospace, banking, and securities faced higher totals, but with penalties spread across multiple companies.

While the research highlighted cases involving other global giants like Airbus, Credit Suisse, and Glencore, Entain is the only gambling operator in the top 10.

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