The Gambling Commission has once again taken swift and decisive action against rogue bookmaker BetButler. Having weighed up the evidence of complaints and issues people were having over the course of nine months, added in the lies BetButler were telling their customers (and probably the Commission) about their financial state, and just three weeks after they closed their own doors.......the Commission have revoked the operating licence of BetButler |
Following a review the Gambling Commission has revoked remote operating licence number 025718-R-307661-009 (Bet Butler Limited).
Having considered all the available information, the Commission decided to revoke the licence under sections 117(1)(f) and 119(1) of the Gambling Act 2005.
The reasons for the revocation are as follows:
- The Licensee is unsuitable to carry out its licensed activities in a manner which is consistent with the licensing objectives,
- The Commission is not satisfied as to the competence of the Licensee,
- The Commission is not satisfied as to the financial circumstances of the Licensee,
- The Commission is of the view that one or more conditions of the licence has been breached.
Not very impressed with the Gambling Commission on this one. Great bookmakers like Pinnacle, 12Bet and SBO leave the UK market, and we're with the monopoly of the big sites and a regulator that can't protect us anyway.
In the three weeks since BetButler closed there has been zero information released from them. Doesn't seem anyone is getting any response from contacting the email address on their homepage, and the Commission have done nothing other than say that they can't help get your money back.
Now the Commission have confirmed BetButler didn't have the finance to run their service, we'll also be finding out whether the idea of ringfencing of client funds actually holds up. It appears more and more likely that BetButler was run as a ponzi scheme, which doesn't bode well for customers waiting for their funds to be returned.
I'm fortunate enough to not have money in there, but if I was I'd be trying to get the Directors up on charges as they shouldn't be able to get away with this.
A limited company becomes insolvent when it can no longer pay its bills when due, or its liabilities—including contingent liabilities such as redundancy payments—outweigh the company’s assets. This is a critical point in the lifespan of a company as it denotes when the directors responsibilities change from the shareholders to the creditors. It also means that the directors need to be extremely careful when considering whether to continue to trade, or not. Any director who knows that the company is insolvent and makes the decision to continue to trade, and in doing so increases the debts of the company can be made liable for the company debts.
Personally I'd be amazed if customers now recieved their money back. The message on the BetButler website was that there were companies interested in buying the client database, and I understand that was from a company wanting to enter the UK market. But who's going to buy the database to enter the UK market with, when the UK market is changing so quickly? Also, given the lack of national press on the subject, limited complaints coming up on twitter and facebook, and the fact they went under, they can't have that big a database to sell anyway.