EXCLUSIVE: Chris Bruney, 25, killed himself hours after an online casino owned by Playtech plied him with £400 in bonuses.

Tomorrow the Gambling Commission will conclude there were serious breaches of industry rules in his case. [1/5]

Full story https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8359275/Online-casino-plied-Chris-Bruney-25-400-boost-hours-took-life.html

The engineer lost £119,000 in the five days before his death - but online casino did not shut his account.

Playtech and Winner were fined just £620,000. They were asked to pay a penalty of £3.5m but, by then, Playtech had already liquidated the company. [2/5]

Playtech boss Claire Milne said: 'Mr Bruney's death was a tragic event and our deepest sympathies go out to his family for their loss. We sincerely apologise and take full responsibility for the regulatory breaches identified by the GC'.

They had not apologised before. [3/n]

MPs are furious about Chris's case saying it shows the real-life tragedy caused by our weak laws and ineffective regulator.

@carolynharris24 said: 'It is shameful that Playtech has been let off the hook for their role in Chris Bruney's death with this measly fine.’ [4/n]

Playtech are a £774m FTSE250 gambling giant. They turn over £1.3m per year, and their boss Mor Weizer has bagged £8m in pay since Chris’s death in April 2017.

The company said it has shut the Winner casino and invested money to prevent this happening again.

This is such a heart-breaking story. An inquest found his suicide was in part because of the 'shame of gambling'.

A bright lad from Sheffield with an amazing partner, family and job, who because of gambling felt he could not go on.

And Playtech are fined just £620,000.

[6/n]

Today his mum said: 'We have been denied justice, we are heartbroken and we have been let down.'

Her only hope now is that as many people as possible are made aware of the dangers posed by gambling companies and VIP schemes.

Please RT and help her fulfill her wish [7/7]

NEW: Gambling Commission confirms our scoop from overnight saying their 'investigation identified serious systemic failings in the way PTES [ http://Winner.co.uk ] managed its social responsibility and anti-money laundering processes'.

Full release: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/news-action-and-statistics/News/gambling-commission-investigation-into-systemic-failures-in-player-protection-at-pt-entertainment-services-ptes-leads-to-company-closure

The regulator says it took the unusual step of completing the investigation and publishing the findings even though PTES's owner Playtech was surrendering the licence - due to Chris's suicide:

We must now be told - why is Playtech not liable for the full £3.5m fine just because it handed its licence back?

The Commission have identified 5 failings:

4 x breaches of money laundering and terrorist financing
1 x breach of social responsibility for failing to interact with a high-risk, high-spending VIP customer - even after he'd lost £119,000 in five days

The £620,000 fine levied is smaller than recent examples:

Betway - £11.6m (Mar 2020)
Ladbrokes Coral - £5.9m (Jul 2019)
William Hill - £6.2m (Feb 2018)
Mr Green - £3m (Feb 2020)
888 - £7.8m (Aug 2017)
Daub Aldereney - £7.2m (Nov 2018)

... Playtech/PTES - £620,000 (May 2020)

It's less even than what Playtech's CEO Mor Weizer gets as his £1m *basic* salary in a single year.

A reminder that since Chris's death he's earnt £8m - much of which was performance bonuses in 2017, the year Chris died.