Sky Betting and Gaming illegally targeted ads at a customer who lost over £45,000 with the operator, a judge has ruled. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Sky found guilty

Sky Betting and Gaming has been found guilty by a judge of illegally collecting the data of a customer who was suffering from gambling addiction.

The data was collected through the use of cookies without express consent from the customer.

Bonne Terre Limited, which trades under the Sky Betting and Gaming brand and is owned by Flutter Entertainment, breached the UK’s strict data protection laws by sending the customer direct personalized messages between 2017 and 2019. The data was collected through the use of cookies without express consent from the customer.

Sky has disagreed with the ruling and stated that it will consider appealing the decision, citing its recent efforts to improve its safer gambling controls.

Data tracking

The claimant in the case, which was heard in the UK’s high court on Thursday, lost over £45,000 ($56,000) gambling through Sky over a period of around ten years. The claimant stated that the operator should have known that he was suffering from problem gambling and that his data was shared with third parties without his consent.

requests found a vast amount of data stored about the claimant

The claimant submitted several Data Subject Access Requests, which force companies to divulge any data they have collected on individuals. The requests found a vast amount of data stored about the claimant, with over 500 data points being tracked and recorded in real time.

Lawyers acting for the claimant also noted that the data stored was only a small percentage of the total that would be used to profile the gambler, who had been identified by Sky’s marketing teams as a customer of high value.

Will Prochaska, director of the Coalition to End Gambling Ads, said: “This case gives us a little window into one operator’s processes but this appears to be normal practice by all licensed online gambling operators in Britain.

“We’ve seen far too many instances of people being hounded by gambling operators when it’s obvious to anybody that their losses are unaffordable and causing them harm.”

Sky to appeal

However, a spokesperson for Sky stated it may appeal the decision, saying: “We fundamentally disagree with this judgment and will be considering an appeal. We have made significant changes to our controls and processes over the past six years as part of our ongoing investment behind safer gambling and will continue to do so.”

The judge noted that industry practices had evolved since the time of the incident, but stated that the decision had to concern the time period in which it occurred, calling the practices “parasitic.”

Ravi Naik, the lawyer representing the claimant, added: “Hopefully this judgment will reduce harm to vulnerable people by serving as a warning to online gambling companies.”

The ruling is not the first time that Sky has fallen foul of UK regulations concerning customer data, with the company being reprimanded in September 2024 over a similar incident of using cookies to target ads at customers suffering from gambling addiction.