British Gambling Commission issues £650,000 fine against NetBet
The operator has been ordered to undergo an independent audit due to anti-money laundering and social responsibility failings.
UK.- The Gambling Commission has announced that NetBet Enterprises Limited must pay £650,000 and undergo an independent audit after an investigation revealed anti-money laundering and social responsibility failings. The operator, which runs netbet.co.uk, will pay the money as part of a settlement with the commission, with all of the penalty to go to social responsibility causes.
Anti-money laundering breaches included an over reliance on financial triggers. The regulator said it found examples of customers being able to spend disproportionally to their net income as well as cases of significant gambling activity and concerning behaviours demonstrated by customers who the operator considered low risk.
The licensee’s money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment was found to omit some key risks, including the management of third-party business relationships, high stakes gambling and controls relating to third-country nationals residing in the UK.
As for social responsibility failures, these included not implementing effective customer interaction systems and processes to minimise the risk of customers experiencing harms associated with gambling and a failure to identify indicators of harm, such as overnight play, velocity of deposits/exhausting limits and escalated gameplay, in a timely manner. The Gambling Commission said these were often only identified once a manual review had taken place.
The operator also submitted inaccurate information when filing its regulatory returns, the Gambling Commission said.
John Pierce, the regulator’s director of enforcement, said: “This case highlights the serious consequences of failing to meet anti-money laundering and social responsibility obligations. We expect all operators to take note and ensure their systems are not only well-designed but are working effectively to protect consumers and to keep crime out of gambling.
“The operator was instructed to take immediate action and make significant improvements to its systems and controls. This included strengthening their risk assessments, improving how they identify and respond to indicators of harm, and ensuring the accuracy of the data they report to us.
“Alongside the £650,000 financial penalty, the operator is also required to commission an independent audit of its policies, procedures, and controls to ensure the necessary improvements they have implemented are properly embedded and remain effective in practice. Our focus is on ensuring operators meet the standards we expect, and where they fall short, we will intervene.”
The latest penalty comes after the Gambling Commission recently suspended the licences of two operators in Britain. Last week, it suspended the licence of VGC Leeds Limited, the operator of Victoria Gate Casino in Leeds city centre, pending a review of the operator’s activity under section 116 of the Gambling Act 2005 (the Act).
The regulator said that following a recent Compliance Assessment. The regulator said VGC Leeds Limited is “reasonably believed to have failed to maintain and implement effective anti-money laundering policies, procedures, and controls, as required under the conditions of their licence”.
Meanwhile, it also suspended the gaming software licence of Spribe OÜ while it carries out a review. In this case, the alleged non-compliance is related to hosting requirements, with Spribe believed to have conducted B2B activity not covered under the scope of its licence by hosting online casino games.
Spribe has described the issue as a “technical licensing gap” not identified during the original application process in 2020”. It said it is preparing an application to vary its existing licence to add remote casino game host activities
