Entain PLC (LSE:ENT), the owner of Ladbrokes, Coral and Foxy Bingo, said it has agreed to pay a financial penalty plus disgorgement of profits totalling £585 million, to make a charitable donation of £20 million and to pay costs of £10 million relating to bribery charges for the Turkish business it sold in 2017.
The FTSE 100-listed group said it reached a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the UK Crown Prosecution Service after a ruling at a hearing today at the Royal Courts of Justice, having alerted investors in August to the likely size of the penalty.
It follows an HMRC investigation into the Turkish-facing business and the activities of former employees of the group and suppliers, where the company is accused of failing to have "adequate procedures in place to prevent bribery".
The financial penalty, disgorgement of profits and the charitable donation will be paid in instalments over four years from the date of the final court approval, which will be sought next month. The £10 million is a contribution to HMRC and the CPS's costs.
A disgorgement of profits is when a company is forced to give back any profits it has made illegally or unethically.
Entain's Turkey online betting and gaming business, which operated between 2011 and 2017 when the group was known as GVC Holdings, was calculated to have generated less than half of the penalty and profit million of cash, according to analyst calculations.
Entain chairman Barry Gibson said: "This legacy matter concerns a business which was sold by a former management team six years ago. The group has changed immeasurably since these events took place, and the DPA process has provided a reminder of the stark differences between the GVC of yesterday and the Entain of today."
He said the bookmaker is "committed to continuing our journey towards operating only in regulated markets".
Last year Entain was forced to pay £17 million for failures at its online business, which runs 13 websites including ladbrokes.com, coral.co.uk and foxybingo.com, as well as for failures at its Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming operation, which runs 2,746 gambling premises across Britain.
Shares in Entain were down 3% at 840p when the judgement came out, but had recovered back to 856.2p not long after.
On Wednesday the shares fell to a three-year low just above 815p before spiking on reports that two more activist investors are pushing for change from the board.
The shares were also under pressure today as Barclays cut profit forecasts for Entain and rival Flutter due to an uptick in competition in US markets and several other headwinds.