The British gambling regulator found that the operator breached social responsibility rules.

UK.- The Gambling Commission has announced enforcement action against Blue Star Planet Ltd. It found that the operator of 10Bet had breached social responsibility rules between November 2019 and June 2021.

An agreed settlement will see the operator pay £620,000, to be directed to social responsibility causes, and £3,571 for the cost of the investigation. It has agreed with the regulator’s statement of facts, which describes failures in 10Bet’s anti-money laundering (AML) and responsible gambling policies, procedures, controls and practices. It also had reporting weaknesses.

Specifically, the Gambling Commission found 10Bet’s deposit limits were too high as were financial limits following AML risk alerts, which prevented effective risk profiling. It concluded that the operator’s policies and procedures were “not implemented effectively or appropriately”. 

The commission said: “Some customers were permitted to deposit significant amounts of money (up to the cumulative deposit limit) in a short period of time before satisfactory risk profiling (and any manual restrictions) could occur.”

The site failed to employ dedicated compliance staff to monitor safer gambling alerts and conduct monitoring overnight. This led to some customers passing thresholds without detection at certain hours.

Some customers were able to spend heavily without receiving interactions due to a lack of high-velocity risk alerts, and the financial risk alerts that did exist did not give adequate consideration to average discretionary income data and failed to identify customers at the earliest opportunity.

The 10Bet website was also found to be missing the required link to the Gambling Commission’s webpage, although the regulator noted that this was immediately corrected when the operator was alerted. It also noted that 10Bet had recognised its failures early, took steps to remedy them and cooperated throughout the investigation.

UK government restructures department responsible for gambling

This month, the UK government announced another change in the department responsible for gambling policy. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has lost its digital duties, becoming the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It will be led by Lucy Frazer, who replaces Michelle Donelan at the helm.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak’s latest shakeup will see Donelan lead the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). It is believed that the DCMS will retain responsibility for gambling, but Paul Scully, who last held the brief, has left the department and a replacement has not yet been named. Frazer is the MP for South East Cambridgeshire, home to Newmarket and the National Stud.