Five land-based casinos have faced enforcement action following UK Gambling Commission assessments of their businesses.
The regulator said Monday that all of the casinos were found to have failed to follow social responsibility and anti-money laundering rules set by the UKGC, which therefore put their operating licences under review.
- Clockfair Limited and Shaftesbury Casino Limited will both pay a £260,000 regulatory settlement
- Les Croupiers Casino Limited will pay a £202,500 regulatory settlement
- Double Diamond Gaming Limited will pay a £247,000 regulatory settlement
- A&S Leisure Group Limited will receive a warning and pay a £377,340 fine.
UKGC Executive Director Richard Watson said: “These failings were identified as part of our ongoing drive to raise standards across the whole gambling industry. Every single operator must ensure they are following rules that are in place to make gambling safer and prevent it being a source of crime.”
Online gambling casino fined
The regulator had also announced that UK gambling business Casumo will pay a £6 million fine and undergo extensive auditing after a UKGC's assessment revealed social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures.
Casumo, which runs casumo.com, will also receive an official warning as a result of the investigation.
Social responsibility failings included not putting into effect policies and procedures for customer interaction where it has concerns that a customer’s activity may indicate problem gambling. This resulted in one customer losing £1.1m over three years without being subject to a responsible gambling interaction, a second customer losing £65,000 in one month without being subject to a responsible gambling interaction, and a third customer losing £76,000 over seven months without being subject to a responsible gambling interaction.
UKGC also said the operator did not carry out a responsible gambling interaction on a customer who lost £89,000 in a five hour period, and on another customer who lost £59,000 in a 90 minute period.
As for anti-money laundering failings, it explained that customers were allowed to deposit significant sums of money without sufficient AML checks being conducted, Source of Funds (SOF) checks were insufficient. Payslips and invoices presented as evidence of SOF were not corroborated with bank statements (or other evidence).
Also, the UKGC found that bank statements produced were not assessed appropriately, inadequate checks of documentation for authenticity, no assessment or limit of how much a customer should be allowed to spend based on known income, wealth or any other risk factors, among others failings.
As part of a new licence condition, Casumo must, at its own expense, instruct a firm of independent auditors to carry out an audit to examine transactions that have taken place post 1 July 2020 to ensure that it has effectively implemented its new policies, procedures and controls, and is compliant with the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice.
Richard Watson commented: “This case was brought about through planned compliance activity and every operator out there should be aware that we will continue to take firm action against those who fail to raise standards.”
