There has been an abundance of recent regulatory enforcement actions in the Gambling industry.

Recent enforcement actions include;

> Videoslots Limited to pay £2m for regulatory failures

> Star Racing Limited fined £594,000

> Done Bros (Cash Betting) Limited to pay £3.25m for regulatory failures

> PaddyPowerBetfair – £490,000 fine for marketing to vulnerable consumers

> The ASA Ruling on Jumpman Gaming Ltd t/a Lights Camera Bingo

Videoslots Limited will pay £2 million after social responsibility and anti-money laundering failures were uncovered during a Commission investigation. 

Social responsibility failures included:

•not ensuring that customers displaying risk behaviours were identified as potentially experiencing harm because responsible gambling reviews were not undertaken as early, or as well, as they should have been. •failing to identify whether a customer was at risk of experiencing harm by not considering whether the amount being deposited or lost was appropriate. •allowing customers showing indicators of harm to continue to gamble significant amounts after interactions despite their behaviour continuing.

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) failures included:

•not implementing its own risk-based processes appropriately due to significant delays in conducting the required action, such as an AML review or request for source of funds following a trigger in its processes.

•not fulfilling elements of customer due diligence as early as intended in accordance with its own risk-based approach.

•not having sufficient AML analysts to process the volumes of data or undertake the AML account reviews in accordance with its procedures.

Gambling business Star Racing Limited have been fined £594,000

Gambling operator Star Racing Limited will pay a £594,000 penalty for anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures.

The operator – trading as Star Sports – will also receive an official warning and have conditions added to its licence.

Anti-money laundering failures included having ineffective policies, procedures and controls in place at the time of the compliance assessment; allowing customers to deposit large amounts before obtaining source of funds information and failing to analyse source of funds information when it was obtained.

Social responsibility failures included not demonstrating an understanding of the impact and effectiveness of customer interactions in terms of the minimisation of customer risk.

These failings occurred between March 2020 and May 2021.

Done Bros (Cash Betting) Limited to pay £3.25m for regulatory failures

Social responsibility failures included:

•having insufficient controls in place to protect new customers, and to monitor high velocity spend and duration of play exposing the customer to the risk of substantial losses without safer gambling interaction

•making assumptions that customers were not at risk of harm because they were winning customers – it failed to carry out any safer gambling interactions on one customer who staked £517,499 over a two-month period

•a lack of evidence of evaluation of the effectiveness of individual customer interactions and a lack of record keeping which limited the effectiveness of future interactions.

Anti-money laundering failures included:

•poor record keeping and its financial alerts (thresholds) were set too high

•failing to consistently obtain appropriate ‘know your customer’ identification and Source of Funds (SoF) documentation from its customers when its thresholds were met

•placing an undue reliance on open-source information and should have taken further steps to corroborate customers’ SoF information.

The failings occurred over various periods between January 2021 and December 2022.

PaddyPower/Betfair (PPB) fined £490,000 for marketing to vulnerable consumers

PPB Counterparty Services Limited, trading as Paddy Power and Betfair, is to pay £490,000 for sending promotional push notifications to devices linked to customers who had self-excluded.

On 21 November 2021, the operator’s app distributed an offer of enhanced odds for bets on an English Premier League football match to devices either linked to accounts that were GAMSTOP (opens in new tab) registered or devices linked to accounts that were self-excluded with the Licensee.

This action breached Commission rules requiring gambling businesses to take all reasonable steps to prevent any marketing material being sent to a self-excluded customer, and to take steps to remove the name and details of a self-excluded individual from any marketing databases within two days of receiving the completed self-exclusion notification.

ASA Ruling on Jumpman Gaming Ltd t/a Lights Camera Bingo

When consumers left the website to open another tab, the words “Hey! Come Back!” appeared in the tab. The complainant, believed the words “Hey! Come Back!” appearing to consumers who had left the website could encourage harmful gambling behaviour.

The complaint was upheld. The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 16.1, 16.3, 16.3.1 and 16.3.2 (Gambling).

Don’t forget to ask us about ARC Assurance if you would like to avoid falling foul of the Gambling Commissions enforcement action! Email [email protected]